Soap Making!!

Well, we did it.....it is definately soap! We were going to make 2 larger batches of soap, but then decided that we should start with a smaller batch, so if we messed up too terribly bad, we wouldn't waste too many of our supplies. So we ended up making two smaller batches and one larger batch. They all turned out....some not so pretty but they are all definately soap! The process we used you need to let them cure for 2 to 4 weeks before you can use it...but I have been cheating a little and have used a small amount. We made lavender goats milk (you can buy it powdered), lavender oatmeal goats milk and the larger batch was oatmeal honey. The last batch does not have hardly any smell to it. It was very easy to make, it is just very time consuming. You need to stir the soap for an hour to get it to "trace" where you can add you fragrances and other additives such as the oatmeal or clays etc. You need to wear long sleeves and protective eyewear because the process uses lye which is very caustic and can cause terrible chemical burns. The end product was not very pretty.....I guess that will come with time. It had a lot of wrinkles in because you need to line the molds with plastic to make it easier to remove. I was planning on posting some pics of the final product, but I guess John never got any.