We're back from the Fall Home & Garden show out at the fairgrounds. Great crowd and lots of people interested in how soap is made, standing room only! Here I am in the middle of my demo. The theme of this demo was "How to make soap with grocery store ingredients". Since the theme of the Back to Basics portion of the show was sustainable living and self sufficiency, I thought a simple soap formula was in order.
For this demo, the soap I made was vegetable shortening, olive oil and coconut oil with oatmeal and honey. I chose those oils specifically; olive oil is great for your skin, coconut I prefer to boost the lather and the vegetable shortening was chosen as a base filler, helps with the firmness of the soap. Oatmeal is soothing and honey is a humectant, so those are good choices for additives.
The only thing is, lye still needs to be mail ordered. I remember a time when it could be bought at the grocery store. It stopped being available that way a few years back, unfortunately. Anyway, the demos were fun and I love meeting everyone and answering questions. It always thrills me a bit to dispel the bad rap that real soap has gotten in the past and put to rest some untruths.
Next up is our First Annual Open House! If you live in Nevada County and wish to attend, there is a registration form available on the front page of my website. I will have my full line of soap and gift boxes for sale. And, as a special treat, I have invited a few crafting friends who do real quality work. Hope you can come!
