New Adventures
Posted By Laura on August 27, 2010
Well, Christmas is round the corner (ish) and I thought that I’d get creative this year with some of my presents. And one way I have decided to do this is by making soap. Last year I watched Kirstie’s Homemade Home from the wonderful Kirstie Allsop. I do like her. However, the biggest flaw of this series was that it was put on tv about 10 days before Christmas, so there wasn’t enough time to do anything in it.
This year, I have decided to beat it. A few days ago I decided to make some soap for some Christmas presents – particularly people like my TA at school. So, I traipsed and sniffed and researched and I acquired all the ingredients. Who knew that soap contained caustic soda?! Yup, that thing that burns all the stuff from down your drains away in a blink of an eye. And it’s not that easy to get hold of. Which also surprised me. Surprises out of the way, I decided to follow Kirstie’s tutorial.
This was a nice, simple tutorial to follow. I did things a tad differently because I ended up mixing the mixture for an hour (oh yes, one whole hour – and boy did my arm ache!) and I left it covered in my blanket for 48 hours because I have a rather warm house and it just felt a tad ‘gloopy’ after 24.
I did wait patiently for some sort of exciting chemical reaction when I poured the caustic soda into the water.
But nowt happened. No explosion or anything like that. I was disappointed.
So, tonight I bit the bullet and turned the soap out of their moulds. And when I say moulds I do mean tupperware and silicone loaf tins! Hehe. So yes, lo and behold my attempts at soap:
Lemon and Lime Soap
Lavender and Patchouli Soap
Honey and Almond Soap
There’s no photograph of the Orange and Cinnamon soap because it didn’t come out of the mould very well and ended up in pieces. Whoops.
I really enjoyed doing this and will do it again soon, methinks. I just hope that in 6-8 weeks, when I can finally test it, it will be as fab still. *fingers crossed*
Hey Laura,
How cool!! I have fancied having a go at making soap for a while but locating all the ingredients was a pain… Very impressed with yours. What a lovely gift, I’d be delighted to receive a little handmade luxury like that!! Looking forward to seeing how your future batches work out
Emma
The ingredients to the above were really easy to find. Give it a go
And thanks
x
Can I be really lazy and ask you where you got all your ingredients from? I know that’s very lazy but I’m elderly you see, with two demanding children and a husband (just as demanding) and YOU KNOW I’d just be ever so grateful…………………
Are you going to make wash cloths to give with your soaps?
They all look lovely and I’m itching to give it a go. I can hear Mark’s eyebrows raising as I type………………..
I feel sorry for Mark already :p
I got the caustic soda in boots and the other oils and veg fat in tesco. I couldn’t get the coconut oil so just used the veg fat. The ‘flavourings’ are a mix of actual fruit (where the lemon and lime are concerned) and essential oils. I got the oils from boots.
Give it a go. It’s easy. Even though you whisk for an hour
I’ve just made some more tonight! x
Just read through instructions 1-8 – seems straight forward enough. MARK…………………
I was looking on line and Boots came us for the caustic soda. I expect it’ll be a behind the counter jobby. Somewhere on line, it said coconut oil to be found in the dairy isle, so I was expecting it to be near the milk or butter. Will try and seek it out. I’m not sure what flavours to do, but I do like a lemon zesty type smell, as well as rosemary and lavender to some extent. I like the sound of the handful of oats and honey. Think I’ll give that one a go. I’ve made my list and think I know where I need to head for the stuff now. Just have to decide on the smells. Thanks very much for the inspiration, Laura. Once again, yours look brill!
The caustic soda is just on a shelf, not behind the counter. Although I did have to ask somebody, but that was alright. In meadowhall it was on a shelf end near the pharmacy counter. The coconut oil is solid so don’t go looking for a liquid. I couldn’t find it but I was happy with the vegetable fat, so wasn’t that bothered. I suppose it may make it more creamy.
For flavours I looked online for inspiration and at various soaps / shower stuff I have lying round the house. I made some more last night and the kitchen smells wonderful this morning. One of the ones I made was rosemary and peppermint. I also put some dried rosemary into it so that there was a bit of texture. x
x
My head is spinning now. Right. Off we trot. I will let you know.
Wow – your soap looks great! I’ve only made is using ‘melt and pour’ which is cheating a bit I guess!