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    • 100 ways to die on a tractor...
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      • Sheep breeds to consider >
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5am Soap making? 

3/20/2013

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So what do YOU do when  you cant sleep and its too early to call anyone you know?  Well, I make soap.  I have been wondering how lard soap will work when combined with coconut and olive oils.  Usually the recipe that has been on the books has been vegan type soap, not for any other reason than the effort it takes to collect and render animal fat into lard.  This is expensive soap and all that money just washes down the drain, literally.  So I have found rendered lard at the Mennonite store in town, and yes I did ask if they had pig fat first.  I will render my own lard eventually but I might as well wait till I have fat from my own pigs.  Besides it would have been an extra 30 minutes on a crazy road to nowhereville to collect fat from the butcher so i still saved money buying the lard.  So 4 pounds of lard will stretch the other vegie fats much much farther. They include olive, coconut, shea butter, palm, grapeseed, almond, and castor oils.  These came out to be 1/3 of the recipe with lard being the rest.  This is going to be the biggest batch of soap to date for me and so I'm a little worried.  Worried that If I hate this soap it will be a long time using it up.  I won't get to find out for another month or so at least, lye soap takes time to finish, or saponify.  I think I worry for no reason since a lot of people make soap from nothing but lard and lye, and to be honest you really wouldn't know the difference for hand soap.  I think that some of this batch will be shredded, mixed with water and some other things and made into a shampoo.  Need to get away from store shampoo, laundry soap too, but those are for other posts.
  At this point I'll end this post and add the lye to the oils, mix with the stick blender and show you how it went in the next post, wish me luck!


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    Eva Taylor

      Born in New Hampshire and raised in Maine, Eva's passion for living self sustainably began with Helen and Scott Nearing.  Both were homesteaders who carved their lives from the land.  Eva now lives in Eastern West Virginia, with her husband Dain and daughter Shayna, carving out her own life.

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