Lets make soap

[paulnewbee1]

Anyone every made liq body soap like at Bath and But.

My mother in law made soap I dont think she used lye my mom did but the soap got real hard and lots of cracks in it
I have neaver made soap so I took all the sites and may be try some this winter once the bees cluster.

thanks for the thread

Paul

[MapMan]

I wish I could make my own Aveeno line of soap, lotions and body washes. That stuff is soo expensive and it's the only thing I can use due to eczema issues. Oh well.....

Hello, Cyndi:

You might check out a topic on soaps for those suffering from eczema on http://www.homesteadingtoday.com

They have a very nice forum, based on the same engine as this forum, so you will feel right at home. Good topics, too!

MM

[Hillside]

Hey folks. I hadn't read this thread until today. I've been making soap for several years and I just wanted to point out that to make quality soap requires very careful measurement. Measure you ingredients by weight and buy the best scale that you can afford.

[power napper]

Making lye from wood ashes!

There is a quite thorough article on soap making and also making a "leaching barrel" layered with bricks or rocks, a layer of straw the wood ashes on top which leached the drippings into a non metal container in the "The Encyclopedia of Country Living" by Carla Emery.
We have made our own lye soap years ago, some successful and some not so successful but it was fun.

[HVH]

I have read that people would float an egg on the lye solution they recovered from ashes in order to determine it's strength. I did an experiment with my kids once and found that eggs can have varying densities so I doubt this method would be very accurate. It does, however, imply that a hydrometer reading could be translated into lye strength, but I don't think this would be accurate either considering that the crude lye solution will have other salts that would contribute to density. Probably the only accurate way to figure out lye strength from ashes would be to titrate.

[Chaski de Cristo]

Do you have a particular recipe for making the soap? Do use use aromatic herbs with the soap?
I am looking into helping some indigenous Indians in S. America develop ways they can use their honey for an extra income as well as begin to use soap for themselves!

Thanks,
Larry