Equipment. Check. Oils and butters. Check. Dangerous caustic soda stuff. Check. Kitchen. Check. Ok, lets just do it then!!
Our first attempt of soap making after only reading about this, we were NERVOUS!!! The caustic soda comes with so many warnings, you barely have the guts to look at it never mind use it!!
First mistake was not stirring it, we just left it wondering what next untill we read (as we were making) YOU MUST KEEP STIRRING UNTILL THE LIQUID HAS GONE CLEAR!! more warnings!! It could explode if you just leave it!! "STIR IT JODIE! It'll explode!!" After we weighed out all the oils and butters we warmed them gently. By the time they were warm our caustic soda was cooling too fast and our oils were scolding. Far from the 5 degrees difference they are meant to be within each other, which we now know is a total myth!
So the dangerous casutic soda part.... Again. We had finally managed to get the caustic soda and the oils around abouts the same temperature and cauciously threw the lye solution into the oil mixture. With all these horror stories about lye I was ready to bolt out of the kitchen, but that wouldn't be fair on Claire. It wasn't at all scary in the end. We stirred and stirred and blended and blended. Finally we hit heavy trace and poured our soap goo into our moulds. Voila! We have made our first batch.
We have the bug and we have our main recipe from our lucky first attempt. We are naturals! Just like our soaps. Now for some playtime with different variations of colours and fragrances. Claire will hone her aromatherapy skills for different skin types and I'll.... Watch. Or sleep. No, I'll watch. Sometimes. If I'm not sleeping.
