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Rosemary Lavender Shampoo

1 c rosemary leaves

1/2 ounce lavender oil

1/8 ounce castille soap

Put the rosemary leaves in 4 cups of water, bring to a boil, simmer for 15 minutes.

Strain the contents, return the liquid to the pan.

Put in the soap, stir til dissolved. Take from the heat, add the oil. Beat til well blended. Bottle for use.

http://cgi.the-sage.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~mmtnsage/rlink.cgi?/LiquidSoap.rcp

Liquid Soap

Created By:

Tina (tina@the-sage.com)

Ingredients:

1 ounce weight Avocado Oil

4 ounces weight Coconut Oil

11 ounces weight soybean oil

3.1 ounces weight KOH (potassium hydroxide)

8 ounces water (and we all know that water is the same in ounces weight as it is in fluid ounces)

Instructions:

Mix as usual. Basic instructions can be found at http://www.the-sage.com/services/calculator.shtml

Phase 1

Allow the water and KOH to be mixed and then added to melted fats. Stir until trace (read use a handblender). Allow to sit for a few days until pH tests low.

Phase 2

Then slowly stir (read use a spoon) in extra water to create a liquid soap.

Notes & Comments:

Heidi Feldman (list member) uses a gelled water, created from soaking irish moss in water, when adding the water during phase 2. Also, scenting is done is phase 2, not in phase 1. The reason? It sticks!

http://cgi.the-sage.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~mmtnsage/rlink.cgi?/BodyPolish.rcp

Cleansing Body Polisher

Created by:

Christie Modesti (Modesti@ix.netcom.com)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup fine sea salt

1/4 cup Jojoba Oil

1/4 cup liquid soap

1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon essential or Fragrance Oil

Instructions:

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and mix thoroughly. Pour into a dispenser or bottle. This recipe makes a liquidy scrub that dispenses well from a bottle with a flip-top cap or from a pump.

Notes & Comments:

This polisher actually acts as a cleanser, scrub and moisturizer all in one. I was really thrilled. No oily residue on the shower floor and no super-slick feeling left on your skin. I've even used it gently on my face and my face feels *wonderful* afterward.

A few tips, *do not* use this scrub on any open cuts or scrapes or on skin that's been freshly shaved "ouch"! Also, if used on the face be careful not to get it in your mouth "yuck" or eyes "yikes"!

Note: you can use any light vegetable oil in this recipe with good results but in my opinion jojoba is the best.

Tip: virtually any liquid soap that is gentle and has a shampoo-like consistency will work in this recipe whether handmade or store bought.

Cut and pasted by

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 01, 1999

Answers

OG,

That's some pretty fancy soap you got there. When I print this and give it to MaMa Bear she'll have us mixin and making all over again.

We've been making out own soap for a few years now. Using the recipes strtaight out of Carla Emery' Encyclopedia of Country Living and we've got to where we prefer it to the strore bought.

Thanks, I think, for the post (more work for the Bear)

as said by:

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), April 01, 1999.

Thanks Old Git,

Any info on plant-based, "grow your own soap?"

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 01, 1999.

Diane, there's a plant (herb?) called soapwort, which I shall look up in the near future. In addition, you can use the roots of yucca to produce a soapy substance. Sweetie tells me he was taught in survival school how to use yucca leaves as needle and thread, but I have a good deal of the real stuff stashed.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 01, 1999.

Thanks Old Git!

Personally, this sort of information is much more helpful to me than anything about Clinton.

I hope that all who have experience with do-it-yourself projects will share their knowledge here.

-- GA Russell (garussell@russellga.com), April 01, 1999.

Here's some info on soapwort. I wonder how effective it is on poison ivy? Might be a very useful plant to have around. I bet Richter's Herbs has the seed! (richters.com)

The Soapwort or Bouncing Bet is 1 to 2 feet tall, the flower is 3/4 to 1 inches wide. The flowers are white of pinkish, and 5 petaled in dense clusters. The leaves are elliptical to lance-shaped. This plant is found in streets, roadsides, railways, and pastures. It blooms from July to September. When mixed with water, the bruised leaves of these European weeds produce a soapy lather that has been used since ancient times for laundry and bathing. Bouncing Bet came to North America with the colonists and went west with the pioneers, spreading quickly from their gardens along the way. Its cleansing action makes it a useful home remedy for Poison Ivy.

-- Clean Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 01, 1999.

Another soapwort shampoo:

Shampoo

-- sparks (wireless@home.here), April 01, 1999.

From some reading I've done, here's how to make soap:

Get suet. About .25 a lb. at meat markets that have a real butcher. Suet is the "best" fat you can get. Other fats will work but smell, color or consistancy will probably leave something to be desired.

Render the suet down to pure tallow. Grind up the suet. Fill a large pot to midpoint, add about 3 inches of water in the bottom and bring it to a boil. Stir (wooden spoon) until all the suet is liquid. If you have ground it, it will melt almost by itself. If you merely cut it into pieces and chunks, you will have to squeeze and otherwise work them during the meltdown to hurry the process. If it looks like you're running low of water simply add more.

Please take care against fire. No splashing or spilling the fat. Wear rubber gloves and eye protection during all of this wouldn't be a bad idea either.

When it is all liquid let it cool for a few minutes to prevent scalding yourself. Pour through a find sieve to remove any pieces of grizzle or meat. There will not be very much of this stuff in suet but other types of fat will probably contain quite a bit. Mix any of this stuff with peanut butter and bird seed and feed to the birds.

When pouring through the seive, use trays or other containers as molds. Pour to a depth of a few inches each. Set these into the fridge overnight. In the morning the tallo will have risen to the top and the water is under it. Drain the water then place a cutting board over the mold and tip the whole thing upside down. The tallow cake will drop out, ready for cutting into bars.

The bottom side of the tallo may have some small amount of unstrained bits which can easily be scraped off.

The second part of the process is a little more exacting. You must now combine the tallo with lye (and other things) to make the actual soap.

A basic soap recipe is based on the weight of the tallow you're using. You need lye that equals 13 percent of the tallo weight. 100 oz. of tallow means 13 oz of lye and so forth. Also you will need water that equals 40 percent of weight of the tallow.

Weigh and otherwise get the ingredients ready. You will have to heat two pots to exactly matching temperatures of about 100 degrees.

*Carefully* pour all the water into the lye. NOT the other way around. Do wear eye protection and gloves. Stir until the lye is completely dissolved. Place a thermometer into this mixture. The chemical reaction will cause it to heat to upwards of 200 degrees.

You can use this natural heat or let it cool and it can be reheated when you're ready for it.

Next melt the tallo in a pot and, watching with a second thermometer, let cool it to the necessary 100 degrees. It is here that both the lye mixture and the tallo mixture must be equal, at a temperature of 100 degrees. It takes some juggling but it must be as close as possible.

When they are matched up, pour the lye into the tallow pot. Do this slowly and steadily and stirring constantly. If you get ahead with the pouring and see lye liquid floating on top, stop pouring and stir until it is mixed in.

Continue stirring until the mixture starts to stiffen up and turn opaque. It will start to get a texture instead of being liquid. Test by taking a spoon full and run a thin dribble out over the surface of the soap in the pot. If it makes a string that remains distinct from the main mixture, you're done. These "strings" may be hard to discern and it may take different amounts of time, depending on the ingredients, but if nothing is seen after an hour, just stop stirring and move on.

Other additives can include vegetable oil, palm oil, olive oil, coconut oil, castor oil, cocoa butter, shortening, lard, etc. You can get fancier soaps with oatmeal, honey, cinnamon, cloves or a ton of other ingredients.

You now pour the warm mixture into molds. Place a lid on the mold and wrap in towels or other insulating material to keep it from cooling too quickly. Allow it to sit in a warm place for a couple of days to set up. Cooling too quickly may cause the lye and fat to seperate and ruin the soap.

Unwrap the probably still warm soap, using gloves because of the lye. It should look and be solid. Any drooling or bubbles showing means a problem possibly requiring another heating and cooling process.

If its still pretty soft, leave out for another day to cool all the way down and dry out a little more. When its hard enough, tip the container over and pop the soap out onto a flat surface. This is where it is cut into the final cakes. Measure and scratch in some cut lines so you know that the cakes will all be the same size and using a warm knife, cut the block into the bar sizes. Smooth out any sharp edges caused by the knife cutting. They will become very hard and sharp after the soap is completely dried.

Set the bars out, spaced apart, for up to two weeks to cure and to lose the caustic property.

===

We've done a lot of this already and it is a long process. Upwards of three weeks for a completed batch. The soap will still contain the glycerin which is removed from regular soap and sold seperately. It can be made in many exotic forms if wanted.

What we haven't done is to grate and remelt the finished bars of basic soap to make the more exotic forms. Add water to a pot and melt the grated bars to a smooth liquid. Don't over stir to avoid bubbles. At temperatures of 150 to 180, the other additives, scents and colors are stirred in. The new mix is then put into molds, cooled again and harded for up to three more weeks.

For Diane.. You can use totally vegeterian oils. One recipe calls for:

42 oz vegetable oil. (or olive oil for a harder soap.) 30 oz coconut oil. 28 oz vegetable shortening. 6 oz cocoa butter. 3 oz castor oil. 14 oz lye. 40 oz cold water.

Another one uses use Olive Oil. 50 oz of olive oil. 20 oz of water and about 7 oz of lye.

This one requires that you check for seperation twice a day during the "insulated" cooling period. Any oil floating on the surface should be stirred back into the mix using a wooden spoon. Check until you see that no more oil forms.

All oils are mixed together and the soap made using the same process as with tallo.

Most of this is from "The Complete Soapmaker". (ISBN 0-8069-4869-8) The above is way less than the allowed 5 percent of the book's contents for a review. It is an excellent book for anyone who would like to get into this and has many more hints, dozens of recipes and methods to use.

Its fun. Try it, you'll like it.

Me.

-- Floyd Baker (fbaker@wzrd.com), April 02, 1999.

Thanks.

The soapwort option sounds more "sustainable" than the suet option. That plant goes on my list.

In California the wild ceanothesus, (-1 sp) in the lilac family, has small blooming flowers, which if wet, and rubbed vigorously in your hands, will lather up. Tried it once on an edible wild plant lecture/ walk in Southern CA.

Dont you just love the diversity of plants and herbs! What a marvelous creation!!

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 02, 1999.