Category Archives: General

Eighth Soap – Goats Milk, Oats and Honey

This batch of soap was planned from the beginning with The Admirable Lady in mind.  That might seem a little sexist, of course, but there is something about it that I feel is just very lady-like – I think it could be the associations of bathing in milk and Cleopatra, or the inclusion of honey which lends it a more softer, feminine appeal. Continue Reading…

Seventh Soap – General Purpose Soap # 2

My very first soap was one that I had hoped would be a soap that could be used for the face, body and hands for people with normal skin – hence the name “General Purpose Soap”.  It will come as no surprise that while the idea was sound, the recipe itself was not!  Making soap is fairly easy.  Making a soap that does exactly what we are looking for is much harder to do.  The General Purpose Soap # 1 was perfectly usable – in fact it was very popular – but I thought that I could do better and wanted to come back and revisit it.

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Sixth Soap – Pumpkin Seed Oil # 1

In Austria, a lot of people use Pumpkin Seed oil on their salads or in other ways when cooking. It has a rich, nutty flavour and the colour is a deep green. As is the case since I started soap making, I now look at all oils and wonder if it can be used in a soap! I was pleased to see that it is one of the options in the online soap calculator that I used (soapcalc.com) and so I set about coming up with a recipe using Pumpkin See oil, but still have a useable soap.
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Fourth Soap – Lard # 1

Almost there, catching up on things that I have already made.  The trouble is, I’m still making things as I write the blog so the finish line keeps on getting further and further away!  But seeing as talking or writing about soap is very high on my list of pastimes, this is certainly no bad thing.

This soap was a collection of new things for me.  As it was my fourth soap, that is not hard to imagine.  But it was the first time using lard, the first time using oats and the first time using Hot Process.  I will post about the different process (hot and cold) at a later point, but as a wee introduction it means that I heated the soap batter in a slow cooker until it was completely soap and then I put in the essential oils and moulded it all up.  In Cold Process, the soap batter becomes soap in the mould and requires more time.

In the olden days, before vegetable based oils were widely available and affordable, people made soap with animal fats.  Lard is from pig fat while Tallow comes Continue Reading…

Previously, on “The Efficacious Gentleman”…………

So, I am rather late with starting this blog.

It was supposed to be a place to capture the journey through the world of soaping, but to be honest I was rather too busy researching and making soap.  At this particular stage I have made 3 different types of soap, a pre-shave oil, Bay Rum cologne and a moisturising bar (under the brand of The Admirable Lady) but we’ll look at these in more detail in the coming posts.

Whilst that may not sound like much, there is a certain complication on top of the many complications that arise from soaping in general – Continue Reading…