Cleanliness is a concern for most families, but how you keep to being clean is just as important as wanting to be clean. Confused? Well just think about it, whether what you desire is a clean home, a clean body or simply just clean laundry you’re always going to seek the aid of a cleaning agent and by that I mean soap of some sort.
Most would just buy into the idea that what strips the most dirt is the best product out there but the fact is, it’s probably stripping away more than what you’d want it to –i.e.: it’s hacking away at your health too! How can anything that keeps you clean possibly make you so sick? Well you really just have to thank those impossible to pronounce long named chemical ingredients in your trusty dirt busters (soap/detergent).
Alright so far that much we agree on. Soap is good but it’s also bad. So where does that leave us? Most would believe at the mercy of these conventional products but that’s not necessarily true. Obviously I’m not suggesting you now rely on the No Poo (no shampoo) lifestyle to keep your body hygiene because it’s a given that that isn’t quite for everyone (even me).
I’m merely suggesting you now pick up bars of natural/organic soaps. Yes, they sound very expensive and they do tend to cost a tad more than your average soap but they are worth your life in exchange. But that’s all quite avoidable if you can find yourself available to dedicate a weekend to a pet project of making your own.
If you look at your conventional bar of soap, read the label of ingredients, you’ll probably be very put off by thought of how much goes into making a bar of soap. There are 4 methods of making your own soap, but the fact is, to make the simplest and healthiest of soap, all you really need is just lye, some vegetable oil (olive oil or coconut oil will do just fine) and a few drops of essential oils (optional really).
I’m not going to put up a full recipe here because you can just google it and you’ll find tens of soap recipes available at your fingertips. But what I am going to do is explain how you make soap with just those 2 key ingredients.
The process is known as Saponification and it literally means “soap making”. It’s a really cool chemical reaction that takes place when a vegetable oil or animal fat is mixed with a strong alkali, which leaves you with soap and glycerin. Of course alkali is caustic but once it mixes with the oil, there’s really none of it left in the final product, leaving it safe for us (follow the proportion of alkali to oil indicated in the recipes to make sure you don’t end up with an excessively caustic soap!).
So really it’s not magic nor is it rocket science. Making soap is just about dedicating some time and having fun with chemistry!
Making your own soap is a great way for ‘clean educational fun’ with your kids, but if you’re pressed for time or you have special skin needs that you don’t think you know how to incorporate into your own homemade soap then I can suggest you give New Dawn Handmade Soap a try. There are many ‘natural & homemade soaps’ available on the market today but I have personally used the soaps from this shop and they are wonderful (Personally adore the rose geranium range! I use the shampoo too)
soap making is awsome!