I admit I’ve been pretty quiet here on the blog lately and felt I owed an apology and explanation. I haven’t dropped off the face of the planet- promise! Summer gets pretty crazy around here between soaping, brainstorming with customers for fall gift projects, playing with a new soaping oil, and the youngsters off of school. Please forgive me for the less frequent postings in these summer months but I’m hoping that we’ll all be happy with the pay off here soon! We’ve got quite a few varieties working their way off the curing racks and some great ideas for the soaps to be whipped up next. Yes, Herbert, even another round of beer soap with your name on it!
I’ve been asked a few times about how we make our laundry soap around here so I’m hoping to make someone’s day today. Ours is pretty simple and you are welcome to whip up some of your own! I just checked on my soap shreds again so I could snap a picture or two for you and placed them back onto the drying racks. They should be ready to mix up by tomorrow.
I start by making a plain 100% coconut or lard soap, depending on what I’m looking for in the final mix. After it has been soaped up and molded for 24 hours, I pop the soap out of the mold and cut it into large bars. The bars rest for anywhere from 24 hours to three days before I shred them down. I find the younger the soap, the easier it shreds. These shreds go back on the rack for one to three days to dry out a bit more. Once they’re where I want them, they get tossed into the soaping mixer and go for a quick spin. (I learned from personal experience to keep a separate blender and mixer for soap stuff- soap still doesn’t taste good!) The soap shreds get washing soda and borax mixed in; that’s it, unless you add a little fragrance when mixing it all together. Everything gets placed into a bucket that sits on the washing machine. How easy can you get, right? It only takes us about a teaspoon to tablespoon to wash up our clothes- even the very muddy ones my kids have brought to me lately. Do you have a favorite way to make your laundry soap or have you even tried before? It was kind of intimidating at first, like soapmaking, but it’s a lot of fun!
Happy Washing!
Dorothy