Soap Making..!

I'll admit it. I've been afraid to try my hand at making soap. I even took a class and bought a kit to make my first effort less intimidating, but I put the thing off. Until yesterday.
With the help of my sweet daughter and friend, I took the plunge.

Much of my hesitation was because making soap involves math, something I am woefully inept at, and chemicals that can cause serious burns, and chemistry. Scary stuff. We wore gloves and coated my counter tops with plastic in case of spills. I read and re-read the instructions. Then we got to it. The first step was mixing the lye with water. The chemical reaction causes the water to heat up to around 200 degrees, so I put the bowl in an ice water bath and monitored the temperature while we did the other steps.

While the lye was cooling we heated up some goat milk, and melted the oils in a big pot.
Rachel and Megan went to the garden and picked some lavender to add to the soap.

Once the lye mix was cool enough, we added sweet, fresh milk from my good Luna goat.

The next step was to mix the lye with the melted oils and stir, for a very long time.We took turns.

When everything was well mixed and had thickened appropriately, we poured the liquid soap into pans I had bought just for this purpose. After the soap has cured I will cut it into nice, little squares.

We added the lavender to one pan.

Once the soap was in the molds we covered it with heavy cardboard, and wrapped it in a thick blanket. When 24 hours have passed I can uncover it, but it has to cure for a month before it will be ready to use.

It was so much fun I can't wait to make more!