Making Soap....

Although it was a beautiful day outside, and having performed a couple of installations, Will and I had to switch gears and do a little chemistry making soap.  This soap is our hot process version.  We prefer the hot process because the chemical reaction takes place during the cooking, eliminating a multi-week curing process.  And because of the addition of heat it makes it easier to use fats that are hard at room temperature, specifically beeswax.
 If you'd like to see a video of my brother and me making a batch, check us out here.

 Willie helped me stamp the bars, which remain soft and need to sit for a few days to harden.

 We bought these stamps at Brushy Mountain.  Here's how the bars look after branding:

 Here are the measurements and ingredients we used for the bars.  This recipe makes about 20 bars of soap in two loaf molds.

	OZ (weight)
Veg Shortening	16
Beeswax	9
Soybean Oil	20
Coconut Oil	13
Olive Oil	24
11 oz lye in 4 cups of water
20 drops lavender extract

We are doing a talk for an alumni group this week and we are bringing soap as a take-away, so hopefully now we will have enough product.