I signed up for a soap making class early spring, which I finally attended end of summer and am only now blogging in this late autumn. We watched the instructor demonstrate outside the most dangerous part of soap making: the handling and mixing of the lye (sodium hydroxide) with the water. Note to self: always add the lye slowly to the water, not vice versa.
Soap making or saponification requires fat, and we sued a combination of shea butter (most expensive), palm oil, olive oil, coconut oil...
...and castor oil. I think having to obtain so many oils, I'm not likely to make soap at home any time soon.
We were divided into groups to measure fats into crockpots, but first we watched the instructor mix the alkali mixture with fats, using a stick blender.
After the initial blending, there was waiting...
...and more waiting and occasional more stick blending until we added the essential oil before the soap was ready to be decanted into the mold.
The instructor gave us silicon soap molds--he said they were expensive good ones, but I think I would have preferred another size in which I did not have to slice the bars.
The soap did smell divine because of the lavender oil distilled from the instructor's lavender fields. Am I likely to make soap again? I don't know, but maybe if I get into aromancy.
