I make soap to sell at craft shows where we sell our honey. I use the basic Tony's No Fail Recipe, works every time. Substitute goat's milk for water and make sure the milk is frozen so that it doesn't clabber when mixed with lye. I had some "rendered" fat given to me and I barter goat's milk for honey from a friend with a goat farm. The soap won't dry you skin and leaves it feeling soft. It's safe to use on your face or anywhere else on your body

Loamlump: What ever you charge for your soap you deserve! Whoah. I will never look puzzled at the price of hand made soap again. I got tired just reading the recipe for the soap. Let alone the space and mess involved! :O :O

Peppermint oil and peppermint in soap makes a nice soap for arthritis sufferers.

My family calls me the "kitchen chemist". I find it fascinating, making soap.
I recently found a recipe that uses full-fat milk that replaces both the water and oils in a soap recipe. When the lye hit the milk, it turned it bright orange! But during the curing period, the colour faded to light butter yellow.
My next experiment is to make transparent and liquid soaps, which uses potassium hydroxide instead of the sodium hydroxide (caustic potash instead of caustic soda). The hardest part was finding the potassium, which some soap supply companies carry, but the buyer must pick it up because of the hazard. It took me four days to find a producer in Ottawa that would ship it. The shipping cost twice the price of the product, but I'm so eager to make shampoo, bubble bath and clear soap bars, I went for it.
Now I'm waiting for the dehumidifier to give me three pounds of water... then the chemistry class starts!

Cool! B-) B-)
Yes, I'll stick to cooking chemistry. Baking soda, pectin, sugar that is!

Well, my first batch of hot-process, potassium hydroxide liquid shampoo is done. It follows very similar methods as the cold process soap using sodium hydroxide, but takes a lot longer.
The soap is still made from distilled H20, liquid and solid fats and oils, and a caustic. The recipe I used jojoba, castor oil, and the solid coconut oil - which is the provider of bubbles and foam. About 8 lbs of stuff went into the pot at the beginning. Measuring is very important. The potassium is much harder to find, I got mine from a chemical manufacturer in Ottawa. I ordered 2 5kg packages, at the price of $12 a package. The hydroxide is classed as a hazardous good, and the shipping was twice the cost of the pails. But it comes in thick flakes, (sodium hydroxide can be found with drain openers in some grocery or hardware stores, but to buy either from a soap supply company, if they have it, requires the customer to pick it up - no shipping is offered.) and is much heavier than the sodium, which looks like table sugar. I figure I have enough potassium to last five to seven years!
In cold process (CP) soap, as the soap cools and solidifies, the final bits of neutralization happen. In hot process, (HP), the neutralization happens on the stove, over the course of three hours while the solution thickens into the consistency of peanut butter. Then you weigh it out into 1 lb. lumps.
The next day I took 1 lump and put it back on the stove with more distilled water, a little glycerin and borax (borax is the thickener and also ensures the solution is neutralized.) After about an hour of cooking, the shampoo was ready to be cooled down. I added no scent or dyes, as I usually add my essential oils in the consumer bottle, customizing it.
Now it must be sequestered, which means it sits in a big Pyrex measuring cup, covered, and any oils that didn't get combined, excess foam and anything else separate into layers. The foam I will use for a shaving base, any oil I will pitch. It is supposed to be left alone for 3 weeks, but after 28 hours, I couldn't wait any more to sample it for myself.
I guess my reason for the excitement is I was always told to have lots of suds, sodium laureth sulfate must be used. Liquid soap made from a solid sodium hydroxide soap leaves a tacky feeling and is constantly separating and has a very short shelf life. Sodium laureth sulfate is everywhere in cleansing items. It is derived from coconuts, but is so processed and chemicalized, it is as natural as Lysol. It is very drying to skin and hair. Most melt and pour transparent soap bases rely on sls. Armed with the knowledge of potassium hydroxide, I can now make my own clear soap without 95% proof vodka (which is very, very difficult to get in Canada), or sorbitol (reacts with the sls for bubbles. In a 100% natural recipe, sugar and glycerin are used), or sls. With a little figuring, I can now make any liquid soap that has a shelf life of 1 year, or any transparent bar soap!
My first use of my shampoo was a test. I put a puddle the size of a quarter in my palm and made like it was a store bought shampoo. I probably could have used just a dime-sized amount, because the foam was incredible. No smell (yet). My hair was a little harder to comb through wet, but once it was dry, my hair felt soft, silk-like and had more than usual body to it. Just to make sure I was not wearing rose-coloured glasses, I took several samples to the Farmer's Market and got both customers and fellow vendors to take it home and try it. I'll learn next Saturday their opinions before I put it out for sale. I plan on $8 for 4 oz for my time and the ingredients, and since it probably could be thinned with water, 4 oz would last a very long time.
A conditioner probably will be needed for really dry or curly hair, or a pre-shampoo oil treatment. Commercial conditioners are required with a shampoo as they repair the damage the commercial shampoo does to the hair.
My next batch is going to be bubble bath. It is the most widely used, completely chemical soup in the western world.
I can share the recipes exactly with anyone who would like to try this potassium hydroxide soaps.

I don't wanna try making it, but I DO wanna BUY it! Especially if it's naturally perfumed (I love perfume, but I can't tolerate synthetic fragrances if they're volatile).

You will need to call home to find out "next Saturday" if your customers like the shampoo. Because I am not letting you out of this weekend, short of illness or cancellation of bus service. ;\

It sounds like such fun to know that you yourself made something that is so neat. I wish I had your knowledge, patience & belief in yourself. But who am I kidding, I can't even make a good loaf of bread. My last 3 tries turned out adobe bricks.

I'll bring a bottle with me, Elfie. Tell me what essential oil(s) you'd like in it, and it shall be done. The friend I had lined up to man my table can't do it, and DH isn't confident enough to the job. DS still has a bad cough, and DD has floor hockey.

My mother has always told me I could do anything I set my head to. I'm often asked why I started making natural bodycare stuff in the first place. I start my explanation why "I'm an organic gardener." My interest in plants was always there, as I grew them. Little facts about the plants I had creeped in, like purple coneflower being the source for echinacea, chamomile making a relaxing tea. That's what got me started, researching at the library, and testing on myself (or DH, who was the inspiration for the Chamomile Calm line. His skin is so sensitive, he gets hives from the chlorine in tap water. A day doesn't go by without him using the lotion and powder.) Then when my first baby came, when I diapered him, I wondered, what did mothers use before zinc cream and petroleum jelly? I threw the bottles out as soon as I learned the danger these things can do. How did people wash themselves before commercial shampoo? What is in a store bought bar of soap that makes my skin feel slippery? The answers built up a self-taught knowledge base that is always getting added to.

Patience? With others, yes, but with myself, absolutely not. I am very hard on myself. I know it, but after 45 years, it is not something I can stop. I am lazy, a coward, selfish and have very dark moods.

Bread. So you found out you can't make it. So what? I tried lots of different things before I found something I am truly happy and skilled at. You just have to look closer at yourself. The talent is there, you just have to find a way to apply it. I used to make decent sticky buns from scratch, but the bread machine now turns out the dough for me. Keep trying different things, Wanda, and you'll eventually hit on something that makes your spirit come to life. I bet you are going to make a wonderful grandma!

You WILL accept money from me for this bottle of shampoo. X-(

I would like something flowery, or vanilla-y, but not musky or herb-y. I used to wear Vanilla Fields perfume all the time, and I'm still trying to eradicate the spots where I last applied it four months ago. :_| It seems I erupt in zits whenever I apply a perfume, wherever it has been applied. No fair.

Damn, Loamy, what's your stamina like these days? I just saw an ad for a Saturday night showing of "Women Fully Clothed" -- dinner and sketch comedy downtown on Yonge Street. THere's also Yamoto, the Japanese kodo drummer troupe at Roy Thompson Hall (remember where we went to see my big and blonde friend for dinner after Canada Blooms?). Kodo drumming is really something to see (and the drummers are nice to look at, too)! We could literally go non-stop all day on Saturday, and just get a hotel room overnight, and then go non-stop all day Sunday until it's time for you to leave... except that DH needs the car to get to work on Sunday. Bah. I'm just trying to cram too much culture into one day... Don't mind me.

"I can't even make a good loaf of bread. My last 3 tries turned out adobe bricks."

Perhaps you'll discover a real talent in carving bread sculpture. :x

You sew rock, woman.

Then it is the king and queen of flowers for you. Rose and jasmine, with a hint of vanilla absolute.

You two are truely grand ladies.

Wanda, so you can't make a good loaf of bread (I tried baking bread back when I was still in my teens, in the days before breadmaking machines...I made a nice little whole wheat doorstop! X-( ). You have the gifts of caring and praying for people. That means a lot! :x --J--

When one of my brothers heard that I was going to be a grandmother next summer, he was so pleased. He said that he was so happy for me because I had always loved children so much. He couldn't imagine me being 60 with no grandchildren to love & teach. I so enjoyed all the children I have taught. In school & in church, the young ones were so much fun. I have taught from infants to 3rd graders & I have to say I love them all. Though I have to admit I liked the KinderKids & under best.