Chocolate Mint Soap......Soap-fully It'll Be Good.............

Sunday was rainy and nasty, so while The Man left to go mushroom hunting over at our aunt and uncle's farm, I stayed home to mill some soap and do some other things.

I had the bright idea to make some chocolate mint soap so flying by the seat of my pants....away I went!

First I went out my front door to my flower bed and picked some chocolate mint.  

Then I brought it in and chopped it up, and put it in some goat milk in a pan on the stove and let it cook over a very slow heat, stirring it once in awhile and making sure not to let it stick.

Meanwhile, I got my grated soap ready to go......12 ounces of it.

After the mint and milk had cooked together till the mint was pretty wilty and the milk was a nice pale green and smelled really good....

 I strained the mint out and weighed the milk.... 

Then I poured 9 oz of minty milk into the grated soap.....

And let it melt down...

I had hoped that it would stay a nice mint green color, but that didn't happen, so I decided to go a different direction.......

I decided to add in some cocoa powder just for funsies....

Which made the soap look like this.....

I'm calling it Mint Brownie Batter

And then I had plenty of minty milk left over, so I made another batch, this time adding brown sugar and cinnamon....

I'm calling it Brown Sugar Cinnamon Mint....

Because I'm super creative like that....

And this is all the soap I've milled so far this year, from the basic soap I made a while ago...

It's all pretty mixed up, but straight across from left to right is Mint Brownie Batter, Brown Sugar Cinnamon Mint, Wheat Germ and Honey, and then that pretty golden colored bar is Lemongrass Cornmeal....

So this should give me plenty of soap to get through for quite awhile!

Till next time....

God Bless,

Making Soap - Goat's Milk, Honey, and Wheat Germ....Oh My!

So Sunday after church I decided to mill some of my basic soap down into a bit more of a luxurious product.

First I get all my ingredients together.  For this batch I'm using the basic soap, fresh goat's milk, local honey, and wheat germ......

Then I grate 12 oz of the basic block of soap....

And add it and the milk to my stainless steel pan that I only use for soap, and turn the burner on the lowest possible heat setting.....

You don't want to stir this too much as it's melting down or you'll wind up with lots of little bubbles in your soap.  This won't hurt anything, but it isn't something I want in my finished soap....

It will start out really thick, but as it heats up, it will turn much thinner...you want to just sort of lift and fold it every once in a while....

After it's almost totally melted down......

You add the honey......

And then you let it melt for a bit more to sort of scorch and add a nice color to the soap....

Then you take it off the heat, and add the wheat germ.....

And gently fold it in....

Then you let it cool down just a bit, to be sure the wheat germ doesn't settle to the bottom of the soap when you pour it in your molds, and now you pour it in the molds.....

Now you let the molds get sort of a skin on top, like a pudding skin, and then pop them in the freezer for about an hour or so.  You don't have to put them in the freezer if you don't want, it just makes taking it out of the molds quicker and easier.

And now you've got several bars of rich, creamy, wonderful soap!

Here I'm washing my hands with the scrapings off the spatula..

You need to let these bars dry for about 2 weeks to a month, depending on how dry the air is.  These contain milk and honey, so if you don't get them dried fast enough, they can and will mold.  They also can warp during the drying process, so it is helpful to occasionally turn them.

Soon they'll be ready to use and I'll be showering in milk and honey!

Till next time....

God Bless,

Milling Soap....................

When last we left the Goodwife (ok, ok, so it wasn't actually the LAST blog post, but it sounds so much more intriguing this way don't you think?) her basic soap had "soaped" and we were waiting to see what would happen next.....

Here she is grating the basic soap into a pan..............notice the gloves.  The basic soap is still caustic at this time.  Better safe than sorry!

Now we've got a pan of grated soap and a lovely glass of goat's milk!  As much as I'd like to drink that entire glass of milk it would cost me close to 6 WW points and I just can't afford that, so in the pan it goes!

 

We turn the burner on as low as it will go and pretty much just forget about it.  If you stir too much or too roughly you'll have lots of itty bitty bubbles in your soap and we don't really want that

Starting to melt nicely!

K.........this is melted very nicely and ready to add in whatever I choose.  This batch I added ground oatmeal. 

Dumped the oatmeal in.......

Stirred the oatmeal in.........ok.....now you can add your scent.  I used warm sugar cookie.  Warning......at this point your mixture is going to look and smell good enough to eat......you don't want to eat it......but feel free to make yourself a nice bowl of steel cut oatmeal when you are done!

Now we are ready to pour our soap into our molds.  You can use fancy molds as I'm doing here, or just pour it into a plain old mold.  Plastic shoe box type thingy's work great! 

Now we are going to pop these babies in the freezer for a few hours.  Once they are hard to the touch, we will get them out and pop the soap out.  Once again, life sometimes isn't like the movies but we shall see if this batch comes out without a fight!

You may be asking yourself..........where is The Youngun while the Goodwife is busily doing her soap?? 

Yup........she's in the Hillbilly Swimming Hole, and no it isn't really warm enough yet, but The Youngun just doesn't seem to care!

UPDATE!

The finished bars.........

Close up of the finished bars.....please excuse my fabulously wonderful photography skills........but at least you get the gist right??

Till next time..........God Bless!

Soap Making......

Today I've been milling soap. That means I'm taking my basic block of soap (that I prepared a few weeks ago) and grating it, adding fresh goat's milk, and remelting it, thereby making a wonderful creamy, rich soap that makes our skin so very soft and silky! The first batch I added cornmeal and lemongrass essential oil. The cornmeal is a wonderful exfoliant (great for scrubbing garden dirt off of the hands) and the lemon scent is very very lovely! The second batch I'm adding wheat germ for a more gentle exfoliant and added skin softening. I love making soap. It makes me feel very good to use my own creation to get clean! I also don't have to deal with the yucky dryness that so many of us gals have to deal with on our arms and legs. I use my soap for shaving my legs and pits as well (not that you want to know about my hygeine practices) It works great!

The following photos show the steps that I use when milling my soap.

These are the blocks of basic soap......

Photo on top (below text) is me grating the basic soap............Photo on bottom is the grated soap with the milk added. You put it over very low heat and stir occasionally until the soap is nicely melted together. If you stir too much the soap will be full of little bubbles....not a big deal, but not what you want.

After the soap is melted nicely, you add your additives (scents or otherwise) then pour into a mold. I use a plastic shoe box type thingy. Then put the mold in the freezer for a couple hours and then pop the soap out onto butcher paper. Then cut into bars and let dry. That's all there is to it!

(Above) Top photo is the uncut block of milled soap. This batch has the milk, cornmeal, and lemongrass scent. Bottom is the cut bars of soap. These are ready to use now, but waiting until they are fully dry will make them last longer.

Well gotta go finish up supper!

Til next time............GOD BLESS FROM GOODWIFE FARM!