Selfsufficientish.com

does anyone make their own soap?
is it more cost effective to make your own rather than buying the cheap soap from the supermarket?
how easiy is it to get hold of the ingridients?

I make mine using used olive oil, caustic soda and little beeswax and it must work out at a couple of pence a bar. If you are interested in making olive oil soap, take a look at my blog. http://contadina.wordpress.com/2010/01/ ... -and-more/

Others on here make it using animal fats, so it's probably worth doing a search for more tips.

Once you make your own soap you'll never buy another bar again .

contadina wrote:I make mine using used olive oil, caustic soda and little beeswax and it must work out at a couple of pence a bar. If you are interested in making olive oil soap, take a look at my blog. http://contadina.wordpress.com/2010/01/ ... -and-more/

Others on here make it using animal fats, so it's probably worth doing a search for more tips.

Once you make your own soap you'll never buy another bar again .

Have you ever added a little coconut oil, Contadina? I'm using about 20% with 10% beeswax and balance olive oil or colza oil and I mast say the larthering is much improved - small bubbles, lots of them and very creamy.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-sufficienc ... =8-1-spell

This link was in another thread

You can see some of the pages for free online I think, not sure if it's helpful but I thought it might be worth a look

Pumpkin&Piglet wrote:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-sufficienc ... =8-1-spell

This link was in another thread

You can see some of the pages for free online I think, not sure if it's helpful but I thought it might be worth a look

yes it was me i think who posted the link
iv just ordered it along with the one on making cleaning products.

contadina wrote:I make mine using used olive oil, caustic soda and little beeswax and it must work out at a couple of pence a bar. If you are interested in making olive oil soap, take a look at my blog. http://contadina.wordpress.com/2010/01/ ... -and-more/

Others on here make it using animal fats, so it's probably worth doing a search for more tips.

Once you make your own soap you'll never buy another bar again .

thanks for the link, iv had a read at it and it sounds simple enough.

one question though, whats caustic soda and whare do you get it from?

demi wrote:

Pumpkin&Piglet wrote:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-sufficienc ... =8-1-spell

This link was in another thread

You can see some of the pages for free online I think, not sure if it's helpful but I thought it might be worth a look

yes it was me i think who posted the link
iv just ordered it along with the one on making cleaning products.

Oh dear, I apologise for not paying enough attention and realising this - can I still blame it on just having had a baby if he's 7 months old now?!

Caustic soda is a very harsh cleaning product that can be found in hardware/DIY shops. I bought some when I was trying to strip some very old paint off a window frame and it worked, when everything from Nitromors to a wire brush on an electric drill had failed - take care with this stuff! Anyway, several years on, it's proving very effective in turning fats into soap.

Pumpkin&Piglet wrote:

demi wrote:

Pumpkin&Piglet wrote:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-sufficienc ... =8-1-spell

This link was in another thread

You can see some of the pages for free online I think, not sure if it's helpful but I thought it might be worth a look

yes it was me i think who posted the link
iv just ordered it along with the one on making cleaning products.

Oh dear, I apologise for not paying enough attention and realising this - can I still blame it on just having had a baby if he's 7 months old now?!

dont worry about it, iv got a wee one too whos 5 months now, its a grate excuse!

is it possible to make soap with out using harsh chemicals?

The caustic soda/lye gets completely cancelled out when it saponifies (it mixes with fat and they both become soap, which is why it's important to use a lye calculator to make sure you use the right amount of each). You can make lye using ash but it is pretty much the same thing. Most soap is made with detergents, which are really harsh, soap made with just fat/oil and caustic soda is completely kind to you skin. I've not used any moisturiser since making my own soap and I have a lot of requests from people with eczema and psoriasis who say that it really helps.

When you buy caustic soda make sure it's at least 97% though as a lot of the stuff in hardware stores has other ingredients too.

The Riff-Raff Element wrote: Have you ever added a little coconut oil, Contadina? I'm using about 20% with 10% beeswax and balance olive oil or colza oil and I mast say the larthering is much improved - small bubbles, lots of them and very creamy.

I keep meaning to but never get round to it. Maybe next batch.

ok, ill need to see if i can find caustic soda in macedonia, concidering i dont know the macedonian name for it it might be tricky

you said you can also use lye from ash, what kind of ash? i have lots of ash in my woodburner???
also whats lye?

I'm sure it'll be in the dictionary. Proper name is sodium hydroxide. You could write the formula on a piece of paper - NaOH - brandish it at a pharmacist and wiggle your eyebrows in a quizzical manner. I have found this approach to be surprisingly effective. In a similar vein, it might be worth learning the Latin names of any plants you might want to grow. These are universal, which can make buying the right thing much easier.

ah ha, sodium hydroxide, now i know what it is!
caustic soda must be the american name?
luckily my husband went to school with the local parmasist so it shouldnt be a problem. :)

thats one of the advantages of living here in this small town, everyone knows each other. we're friends with the local vet as well, he was treating our dog with antibiotics because she had swollen lymph glands on her neck and then later she needed minor surgary to drain them as the antibiotics wern't working, and wee payed him with some of our homemade raki :)

It's known as lye in the US but it's nice and easy in Italy as it's called soda caustica and is usually sold in agricultural type shops as it's used to cure olives.