Prepwork........

So, I finally got down to buying myself a weighing scale since my first attempt at soap making gave me such a high that I knew this was to be my hobby for quite sometime to come. 

My new scale

It took me a while to find it. None of the supermarkets carried it. At least, not the ones I frequented. Nor could I find any online. Amazon had dozens of them but Amazon does not ship to India. As yet. I finally did find it in a small inconsequential supermarket very close to home. Funny. 

I liked what I read about soaps which had olive oil as one of their base oils and decided I wanted to try that out. So, fortunately for me, I came across a sale in one of the stores here which was having 50% on their stock of Pomace Olive Oil. I went out and bought myself 10 ltrs of it. And landed up paying for only 5 ltrs. I had all that I needed. Or most of all that I needed. Basically, oils, lye and essential oils. All I needed to do was make myself some SOAP...........

Love my soaps

My current collection of soap

Well, continuing on my soap journey, let me tell you, I have not bought commercial soap/detergent in more than 3 months. And the results are phenomenal. Apart from being absolutely economical, especially when it comes to dishwashing and laundry, it has helped in a lot of other ways too. The pigmentation on my DH’s face has nearly vanished (which is pretty common on dark Indian skin), the hard dry skin on his knuckles has a lot diminished. He does not need to use moisturizer on his hands like he used. My second daughter had developed a skin allergy all over her left leg roughly 4 years ago. Multiple visits to the dermatologist and several tubes of skin ointments did not yield results. She just about gave up and sacrificed short dresses, much to the chagrin of all the boys in this city. Last week I noticed her dark spots had faded quite a bit. In fact, she had a burnt mark on her calf and that too seemed lighter. I wonder if many of the current skin ailments prevalent could well be the result of commercial soaps. Is that why doctors are forever recommending us to change our soap? Hmm... Even my laundry is looking far happier and brighter in the last couple of months. Not to mention that the clothes do not have the over-powering fragrance of detergents which often makes you sneeze. Instead, they have a lovely mix of orange, lemon and tea tree smells. Boy, am I glad soap-making found me………. 

A slight correction..........

My first attempt at soap-making was not the bar of cold processed soap that I mentioned in my earlier post, but was laundry soap.

Laundry Soap

One of the very first websites that I came across was Rhonda's fantastic site on not just soap making but a lot more. And there I learnt how to make laundry soap. I was really thrilled at the end product. Not only did it do a good job of cleaning my clothes, but it was a lot less expensive than the commercially bought ones. I chose to make the liquid version since we have hard water and I wasn't sure if the powder would effectively dissolve. The washing soda did help soften my water. How do I know? Because my clothes stopped having that dingy grey look, especially the whites.Since I had not yet begun to make my own soap, I had to rely on Sunlight, which middle class India has long forgotten what with all the Surf, Tide, Ariel invading the market. My first batch of 6 ltrs lasted me a month and a half. I have a larger capacity front loader and needed a bit extra. I was also a bit unsure of the cleaning properties, so would invariably put more than necessary for each wash cycle. I am currrently into my second batch of laundry soap.  My recipe is as follows:

Laundry Soap

1 cup of grated Sunlight

1 cup of washing soda

8 ltrs of distilled or filtered water

I heat 1 1/2 ltrs from the 8 ltrs of the water and add my grated soap gradually till it is completely dissolved. Do not over cook it as it will begin to coagulate. Turn off the heat source and add the washing soda and mix it with a whisk till it is all well mixed up. Pour this mixture into a bucket which contains the balance 6 1/2 ltrs of water and mix thoroughly. You can add any essential oil now or leave it as is. I add about 10 drops of Tea Tree Essential Oil for its anti-bacterial properties and of course its woody scent and 10 drops of Lemongrass Essential Oil. Allow it to sit overnight, covered. The next day it would have gelled up, which is normal. Again, whisk it thoroughly and pour into your storage jars. If your bucket has a lid, then you can leave it in the bucket and use it from there. It will have the consistency of a thin pudding. Normally, 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup per load works just fine. Whilst Rhonda's recipe calls for a cup of Borax as a fabric whitener, I have had problems finding them in any of the stores here. Will continue to search for it and see if it makes a difference to the wash. So, there you have it my first attempt at soap. The earlier post was my second attempt. Hopefully, my next batch of laundry soap will be out of my handmade soap which I have just made with 0% superfat...........

The start of the soaper in me

I came across soap making quite by accident, the way homeschooling happened to me 12 years ago. In my constant search for knowledge (ahem), I came across homeschooling when DH and I were toying with the idea of shifting curricula for our 3 kids. The more I read about the concept of homeschooling, the more I fell in love with it. We were away in the Middle East at that time and homeschooling was a very good option when we would eventually return to our country, India. One of the biggest drawbacks of education here has been the fact that children need to learn the state language as a compulsory subject. So, every time you shift a state, the child has to learn the language. For all those netizens out there who have quirked up an eyebrow at this bit of information, let me explain. (sorry for the long diversion from soap making). India is a very diverse country and each state has its own language. Much like you have very different accents across America or across UK. Whilst English is the most widely spoken language by far, our national language is Hindi, though Hindi is generally spoken only in the north of India and sparingly in the east and west. 

Anyway, back to soap making. So, as I was saying, soap making happened to me one night while surfing and I absolutely fell in love with the creations I saw in the different blogs. I wanted to recreate similar soaps. My first hurdle, which I realized was the fact that in soap making everything worked as per weight and not volume. Since I do not own a scale, I was wondering if it would be worth an investment considering this was only an early excitement and could fast die down. Then I came across a video on YouTube where the lady was making soap using measures instead of weights. That was all I needed to try out soap. Of course, it did not come out too well, as the lady had warned. But, that initial experiment was enough to motivate me to make some more. And off I went in search of a scale......

My first batch of cp soap