A short time before I started making soap, I got in to traditional wet shaving – using a double-edge razor with blades, as well as a brush with shaving soap to make the lather. I hadn’t really given any thought to making shaving soaps until there was a discussion about it on The Soap Making Forum. It didn’t take much reading for me to decide that I was going to have to give it a try for myself.
In my previous posts I have often spoken about various processes involved in making soap. In this post I will describe how to make soap using Cold Process.
Cold Process seems to be the way most people make soap and is certainly a straight forward method. Many people use it because it is not only arguably the easiest method and therefore ideal for starting out, it also allows a lot of freedom in how the soap looks which makes it a mainstay for the majority of artisan soapers the world over.
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For my ninth soap I decided to revist one of my first soaps again. It is something I think is worthwhile as I would rather have made a few recipes that I am happy with rather than a lot of recipes that I don’t feel are really quite there yet. Continue Reading…
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…
Getting back to soaps, but still catching up on soaps made before the blog started, today I want to talk about the second soap that I made on the 14th December 2013 – a nice Pine Tar soap.
This type of soap is one of the reasons why I started this whole thing. It’s a classic recipe, used from the 1800s through to early 1900s. It fell out of fashion somewhat, as many of the things I make have. This was mainly due to the carcinogenic properties of Creosote that often ended up in Pine Tar products. But a good Pine Tar Continue Reading…
Again, very late with this post as I made my first soap on the 17 November 2013.
As a first batch, I wanted to go for something easy to make, wouldn’t put up too much of a fight or anything, but would also be useful. I know a lot of people who suggest using Continue Reading…