Kitchen Alchemy

Today Nic and I got together to make soap, using the basic cocoa butter soap recipe in our book, A Green Guide to Country Crafts. We thought we should certainly practice what we preach!

First job is to make the lye, adding specific measurements of caustic soda to distilled water. The magic then begins as the solution magically warms up....
Whilst the lye is doing it's thing we weigh up our other ingredients...

And add the castor oil and olive oil. If you didn't know better, you'd think it was a cake in the making!

We then melt the mixture, ready to have the lye added.

Our choice of moulds:. silicone muffin cases and some tupperware!

To our basic soap recipe we've decided to add some essential oils of ylang ylang,chamomile and lavender.

The finished mixture ready to put into moulds.

And that's it, the finished soap, covered in cling film is left to set and cure. All done!

Pleased with our handiwork we allowed ourselves a tea-break!

We hope this will whet your appetite, soap making really is very acheivable and easy to do. Yes, a bit of care is essential given some of the ingredients but it is brilliant fun. But don't take our word for it, for full instructions for the basic soap and yummy recipes to adapt the basic cocoa butter soap, such as choc and mint soap and honey and oat scrub, get yourself a copy of the book!

Jacqui & Nicxx