I had every intention of cleaning the house today. I did dishes and laundry, so I suppose that counts. I just wanted to play.
I like making soap. So I wondered if I could make my own shampoo, too. I’m trying to reduce the number of harmful chemicals in my home and am switching to gentler cleansers, soaps, makeup, etc. I tried a concoction of coconut milk, bentonite clay, tea tree oil, and some other stuff. I looked like I’d washed my hair with Wesson, even after rinsing with straight vinegar. Guess I need to work on something not so oily for my baby-fine hair. It smelled great, though!
So I moved on to cookies. I took a recipe from fastpaleo and replaced the flax with coconut flour and added cocoa powder. The result was soft and almost fudgy. Yum! Bonus points for being filling and not overly sweet.
Being dissatisfied with the shampoo experiment, I hauled out the stick blender and lye to make regular soap. I used coconut, shea, castor, and olive oils, green tea, bentonite clay, and an essential oil blend that’s warm and earthy. I’m a fan of room temperature process. It all turned a lovely dulce de leche color. The only not fun part about making soap is waiting for it to be ready. I’ll let you know how it turns out!
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Clay and Green Tea Soap
Makes 500 grams (1 lb)
Lye 72 grams
Green tea made with distilled water 190 grams
Coconut oil 200 grams
Shea butter 125 grams
Castor oil 25 grams
Olive oil 150 grams
Essential oil of choice 1/2 ounce
Bentonite clay 2 tsp
Get all of your materials and tools together. Measure everything out.
Put any oils that are solid or semisolid together.
Add lye to water (tea). Lye goes into water, NOT the other way around!
Stir lye and water. Wait until mixture is clear. Mixture will heat up.
Add to solid/semisolid oils and stir a bit. When oils are totally liquid, add other oils.
Use stick blender like a spoon and stir a bit. Turn stick blender on for 10-15 seconds and stir.
As soap thickens, add clay and fragrance.
Alternate off and on stirring until mixture reaches trace (looks soft and silky like a pearl).
Pour into prepared mold.
Wrap in blanket to help keep chemical reaction going.
The next day, pop the soap out of the mold. Cut as desired.
Let cure for at least a week.
The more cure time, the gentler the soap and the better it stands up to moisture. Curing allows the pH to settle (lye burns) and water in soap to evaporate.
If you make a larger/smaller batch or adjust/change the oils in any way, run the recipe through a lye calculator such as http://www.soapcalc.net. Also read up on safe handling of lye. Very bad things can happen when fooling around with lye. It is caustic and can burn you, children, pets, and your kitchen fixtures.
The Boston's Bark 