Like everything else in this website, when it comes to soap, I asked myself, how did we make soap before big-industry took over and loaded it with chemicals? 

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I remember my Mom telling me about how my Grandmother used to make soap in the smokehouse where my Grandfather used to hang and smoke the meats from animals he raised on their little plot in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and I have this mental image of my Grandmother with a giant wooden spoon stirring and stirring a vat of soap over a wood smoke fire, pushing tendrils of humidity curls out of her eyes.

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Well, if  you've ever made soap, that is not wholly inaccurate. Today though, with some clever things like a stick blender, a vented hood on your stove and the internet, it's pretty easy to do in your kitchen.  We don't use animal fats as often now, those have been replace by palm kernel oils or flakes and coconut oil is one of the main soft oils.

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I don't mess around too much with my recipe, having found one that I like, but choose instead to get creative with exfoliants and molds.  I tend to stay away from colorants and chemical fragrances too, though am fond of a little pixie dust (non-toxic body glitter) every now and again.

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The use of essential oils is tricky as the intense chemical process of saponification (turning fats, oils, water and lye into soap) eats almost everything unless its a chemical fragrance. Many soap makers call it the Lye Monster. You have to use so much essential oil in fact, it makes the soap crazy expensive and can sometime alter the hardness of the bar.  Citrus and Lavender, my favorite essential oils, survive though and that's good enough for me - and don't worry about the lye, it gets transformed into soap.  

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A good hard cure on the soap means a long-lasting bar in the bath or shower and it takes 4-6 weeks for soap to cure once it's made. I will try to keep this stock up but I may sometimes run out.  Be patient, there is always more coming!!

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