I love to shop for exotic ingredients, to seek out the
new and exciting but a careful look at which soaps I use over and over
and also sell best shows that for many of them the basic ingredients come from
my kitchen.
My favorite oil for soap is the oil I grew up with ~ OLIVE oil.
I grew up in an Italian household. Olive was the oil we used for
everything, frying, salads, and dipping bread and vegetables. The
very first soap I used on my children was a green castile soap I used to buy
in a health food coop I was a part of when I lived in Brooklyn. Most of
my soaps contain at least 50% olive oil. I still buy my olive oil from
Costco, three of those big jugs at a time. This is a no fail soap for
beginners and babies. You can add a bit of castor oil sold at drug stores and
cocoa butter sold in 1 oz tubes at my local grocery store but then it is not
castile.
One of my first soaps and still one of my favorites is oatmeal soap. I
do use oils and butters that I buy online to add to the quality of the
soap but the oatmeal I use most consistently is good old Quaker Oats ground in
my coffee grinder (now reserved for this purpose!). I finely grind
the oatmeal in my blender or grinder, wet it with olive oil then let it
soak while I make the soap and stir in at trace. I use one
cup of oatmeal to about 100 ounces of oils and butters.
Another best seller for me is peppermint poppy soap. For this I just go
to a local market that caters to Polish customers. I can buy a large
container of poppy seeds very inexpensively. Again just make your
regular base soap, fragrance with peppermint essential oil and stir in between
½ to one cup of seeds per 100 ounces of oils. With the leftover
seeds I usually make my mother’s poppy seed bundt cake!
Cornmeal, and coffee grinds right from the kitchen
shelves are also great for exfoliating soaps made for hands, I make a
kitchen soap using coffee as a liquid and new grinds as an odor adsorbing
scrub. Cornmeal makes a great scrub soap. One of my son’s
surfing friends buys a log at a time of soap with cornmeal in it. He had
a fun time explaining that soap log going through airport security on his was
to Hawaii!
Annatto seeds, paprika and turmeric are all spices which can be used to
naturally color soap. Just infuse your base oils with them and
strain through a coffee filter. I have not had success with any green
spice staying green, they all seem to turn a brownish color which is OK if
that is your goal.
Goats milk, buttermilk, cream and yoghurt all add something special to soaps.
I can buy a quart of goat milk at my local supermarket, freeze it then always
have it ready for my soap ventures. I tend to add yoghurt or heavy cream
at trace to add a bit of richness to a soap. Just subtract the amount
you are adding from the lye/water mixture.
Pureed fruits and vegetables can add something very special to soaps.
Camille shared with this list her very special Slice of Summer soap which
contains pureed cucumbers. I’ve received soaps in swaps containing
pureed carrots, mango, pumpkin and strawberry. Usually these
purees replace some of the liquid in a soap. Avocado, usually combined
with avocado oil is also a popular soap.
Juice, teas or beer can be used to replace all or part of the liquid in a
recipe. If you use beer ALL the alcohol MUST be gone. Beer soap
should only be attempted by someone experienced in working with lye and
someone looking for a challenge. Personally, I don’t do this but I’m
lucky to have friends willing to trade with me to keep my son supplied with
his favorite beer soap!
Another simple time honored soap is egg yolk soap. Simply add to
your favorite base one separated egg yolk to every pound of oils. Keep
your temperatures low for this type of soap. To keep the yolks from
curdling bring the soap to a light trace and remove a few cups then add
the lightly beaten yolks to this small amount of soap and mix it back in
to the main batch. Be sure to have the yolks at room temperature.
So the next time you have one of those "I need to try something knew
" cravings you may not need to look past your own kitchen.
