I just had a totally long (but fun) workshop. This workshop was the only non-PDR workshop I have schedualed for the next three months (that I know of). Today, yours truly made a great big mess like the great big dorky kid I am, because today, I made soap. Soap soap soap! Whee!


Yep, I spent the last five hours with ten other people crammed in the kitchen of the H.O.M.E center, being dizzy from the essental oil fumes, making hand crafted hot-cast soap.


It was so kewl.


I've always wanted to make soap, but because of time and not really knowing how to go about it, I never did. April (the lady who ran the workshop) has her own soap making company, so it was really neat to see how quickly she could churn out ten pounds of soap without burning her hands down to the bone.

We made coconut oil lavender soap (with dried lavender and lavender oil in it, smells great, annoys the holy hell out of my hands..lol), and since it was the hot process we had to use lye (all soap is made using lye, that's how glycerine is made, so don't let anyone tell you any different. That dosen't mean all soap has lye in it. I'm going to ask her to do a cold soap class, because I'd like to be able to do soap with crap embedded in it) and lucky me, my hands are evil, and plot ways to pain me.

Since you're not supposed to touch the soap with bare skin for four weeks until the lye is completely gone, everything is done with rubber gloves or through a mold. My hands are so wicked that even through the soap mold (a tupperware container..lol) they got irritated. I've had to wash them in vinagar and they're still stinging. That's another reason I've stayed away from making soap (and candles too), my hands get so easily upset that it just makes it frustrating.


It has to cure for four weeks, so it can't be used until then (I can cut it tonight though) but I have enough for probably six small bars of soap. I can't use it because of my hands (it's too strong), but I am willing to pimp my love-a-lee smelling soap off on anyone who wants a bar (For the low, easy one time payment of nothing! That's right! Absolutely zilch, zip and nada. And if you act now, we'll throw in this free manila envelope!) when touching them won't give you a fun trip to the burn ward.