The recipe for herbal soap:
8 oz coconut oil
8 oz olive oil
16 oz lard
2 oz Shea butter
4.8 oz of lye
11.2 oz liquid
herbs used
2T chamomile
2T round leaf plantain
2T comfrey leaf
2T golden seal
Grind herbs pretty fine and use half the dried herb mix to make tea for the soap liquid. Steep the dried herbs in about 21/2 to 3 cups boiling water for about 30 minutes. Strain out the herbs an then weigh 11.2 oz of tea for your soap liquid part. After teas is cold, stir in 4.8 oz of lye slowly as this will get very hot. Let sit to cool down to about 120degrees or so. Weigh an melt all the fats together and allow them to cool to same temp as lye/tea solution. When both have cooled put your stick blender in the oils and hold it at an slight angle and slowly pour in the lye solution and blend the soap till all the oil is incorporated and no oil floats on top, just a couple minutes.Turn off blender and let sit for 5 minutes, stir again, repeat this process till the soap traces which may take about 30 minutes or so. Once the soap traces blend in the remaining dried herbs and pour the soap into you selected an prepared mold. I cover the top of my soap with saran wrap and lay a towel over the top to insulate it. This helps it retain heat to set an cure better. Kinda looks like butter. Smells great tho!
Tomorrow I will remove the layer of plastic and remove the soap from the mold an cut it into bars and let it air dry and cure, then its ready to use. All the herbs that I used in making the tea for this batch of soap have healing an soothing properties for the skin. And the addition of Shea butter will make it a moisturizing soap as well. I am excited to try it. I have a ton of other ideas for adding things to homemade soaps. I would like to make a batch and add dry ground coffee after it traces for hand soap to remove grim an smells from the hands. Once you know the basics of soap making the possibilities are endless.
I also made a loaf of honey oatmeal bread this afternoon too. It was so dang good hot from the oven with butter all over an sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Yummy!!
Not much else happening around here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.
Stella
3 comments:
What do you use for your mold? I know that it looks like a box, but what size do I need? For this recipe and your Coffee and chocolate soap, did you use the same mold? I have been saving my lard and beef fat, and I used to have a wood mold but no longer, and trying to find something to use. Thank you for the recipes.
HI Jennifer and thank you for reading. Dang I aint the least happy with all the hoops I am jumping thru to get to the comments here with blogger. I gotta figure this crap out. lol But to answer your question regarding the soap, the box I used was one that would normally hold a case of cases of like chicken noodle soup but I cut it down to about seems like a 12 inch square box. You can use any shape or size you would like. velvetta cheese boxes make good molds as well. For this recipe you would probably need 3. You could even use a square metal or glass cake pan, lined with plastic of course. Oh and half gallon juice boxes are great too. I did use the same size mold for both soaps here. I looked around to see if maybe I had kept the box, but noooo, heck it prolly got used for who knows what lol I hope this helps a bit and best wishes for your soap making . Also please email me if you have any other questions at stellasplace62@gmail.com I will be able to answer you more quickly. Have a blessed day.
Thank you so much Stella for your help. I do have another question so I'll email you directly. Thanks again!
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