Soaping

I am almost out of soap. I use homemade soap to wash my hair and the rest of me. I love the lather I get from homemade soap. If you've never tried any, you ought to invest in a bar. I guarantee you'll become a 'soap snob' like me. That's what the hard-core soapmakers call those who won't use anything but gentle, homemade soaps.

Soaping Supplies

I like to make my soap because I love the chemistry of it. I enjoy figuring out which oils to use and how much lye to use. It's really cool to do, but very dangerous to do. If you look, you'll see my goggles and dust mask to protect me from the airborne lye particles. Lye can kill you if you inhale it. The lye is in the brown paper bag to the left of the gallon jug. By the way, the gallon jug is vinegar in case I get lye on my skin and need to neutralize it quickly.

The stick blender is for blending the oils and lye together until it reaches 'trace'. That's soap lingo for getting thick like pudding.

This picture shows me in the process of letting the lye mixture cook. I get to sit back a while and let it do its thing. I won't have to do anything for about 1/2 hour.