Giddy up and here we go….
What is going on you ask? Well I finally made the commitment to make soap this weekend. See I’ve been literally talking about making soap for at least 15 years and I decided I either had to do it or just never talk about it ever (and I mean EVER) again.
My decision was to pull the trigger and go for it. Now I’ve been watching hours and hours of YouTube videos and not saying that I look like I know what I’m doing – but hey, if these gals can make soap – then why in the world couldn’t I?
After ordering some of the supplies, I soon found that I needed even more. Holy Smokes this soap making stuff costs more than I was expecting. So off to the organic store and Walmart to pick up the remaining items. Now I’m set. One (or three 🙂 ) more videos to watch and I’m going to do it.
After I figured out which recipe that I was going to make, I put down heavy brown paper on the counter top just in case I get into trouble. I measure out the lye and water and stir that together. This is a critical part of the soap making and now the wait for it to cool down. It gets super hot and it has to cool down 100 to 120 degrees.
Coconut oil, olive oil, and vegetable shortening all get melted together
My melted oils which get mixed with the lye mixture later were spot on for the temperature, but I had to wait … and wait… for the lye to be ready. I don’t think I ever read that this was a hobby that you had to have patience for. OK, now both sets of ingredients are the right temperature and into the new kettle they go. I must say that it did exactly what the video’s and books said it should do and after I mixed in the milk, honey, and oats, I was ready to mold it. Into the new mold it went and it got covered with cardboard so the top didn’t ash and towels and blankets to keep it warm to help cure it for 24 hours. After it was all said and done, it really wasn’t too bad. So after I sat down to see if there are any more soap videos that I could watch (sad life right?) I found one that’s called the Soap Queen. She talked about making sure you don’t get any bubbles in your soap. BUBBLES? Who ever talked about bubbles before?? Well the soap is going to come out of the mold tomorrow night so I guess we’ll just have to see if I failed on the bubble test. But for now? I’m checking out what my next soap recipe should be.
And how did I spent the night after the soap making experiment was done? Well Ma stopped over earlier with Homemade Beef Noodle Soup. It was perfect way to end the day! See today is St. Albert the Great day and as a kid we either had beef noodle soup or vegetable beef soup on November 15th. If this sounds a little odd, let me back up. See November 15 is St. Albert the Great day in the Catholic Church. And with our family being Catholic and my Dad’s name Albert – as you can about imagine this day was brought up more than once around the November time frame. Us kids loved the beef noodle and Dad liked the vegetable beef soup. So my picture of the day is that of my favorite kind of soup. Ma’s homemade beef noodle soup.