Remember the days in your room when you wore safety goggles and lab aprons and in home economics class,all the ingredients had to be properly weighed and measured to the oz?  Who knew those early teachers would lay the foundation for me to become somewhat of a artisan soap maker.

For several years I had read various books like Soap Makers companion, read about it on tons of blogs, and studied YouTube like crazy.  (check out the video we followed and used her method at Homemade Soap at Marshas) Finally, my twin and I made a decision to just get together and make this happen.

We knew our grandma made it and it was the best soap around. As children coming from outside to play, we were in the enclosed unheated front entry of the big four story farmhouse.   There was a small  white cast iron sink to wash up in.  We had to wash our hands before coming in and I remember the soap having a fresh clean pure smell and it lathered up great.  

We bought all the inexpensive measuring cups, plastic mix spatulas that could withstand hot temps, found some boxes and lined it with butcher wax paper, gathered up an old stainless steel pot, found candy thermometers to measure oil and lye temperature.   We bought the safety googles and the purple household gloves.  Now the equipment was in order and then to complete the list we needed shortening, olive oil, distilled water, and coconut oil.  We had some lavender essential oil on hand We bought the lye on from www.brambleberry.com ahead of time.  I had an electric stick blender in my kitchen cupboard that I very seldom used so I dusted it off and put it to use.

Grandma Ella used a cake pan as her soap box.  My dad, Marlin, made the mistake one time thinking it was a pan of white bars .  It was in the garage on the table and naturally, any little boy is going to sneak a bite.  Mistake.  He spit it out super fast and hightailed it out of there quickly so he would not get into trouble. 

We then called our mom and sister for support as they were in charge of handling any emergencies that may come up!  After they arrived, we went out to the well ventilated garage and told our other family members to leave the premises (get lost) for a few hours because of the danger we were putting ourselves into.   We did not want them to breathe in or be close to our science project.  They did not object.   We had all the cell phones close to us in case we needed to call 911.  The vinegar spray bottle was next to mom in case we splashed the lye water on ourselves.  We reread our soaping directions a hundred times just to be sure.  ALWAYS LYE INTO WATER.  Combine the lye water to the oils make soap!  It is a big fancy word call saponification.

I won’t go into the details today of how we actually made soap but we sure had a lot of nervous fun working together on a project and we each had about 3lb box of soap to go home with!  We had to wait 6 weeks before we could use it in the bath and shower because soap needs to cure. (Please note that the above recipe is for conversation and memories only.  Use a reputable recipe as it can be very dangerous working with lye.) It was exhilaration because it was something handcrafted with everyday supplies and we started a new ‘old’ tradition.  What are your soaping traditions?