This year, I decided to tackle handmade soap. Some of you out there will argue that I'm giving in to my post-apocalyptic fears about the end of life as we know it - and yes, there might be a bit of that in my choice of class, but dammit - I get to choose - and soap it is!
So yesterday morning, I dragged my sorry butt out of bed at 5am in order to get to my soapmaking class by 8:30am. It was worth it - it was one of the best classes I've taken in a long time.
Before I start waxing (pun intended) on my new appreciation for homemade soap, let me put a plug in for a local jewel we have here - The Ploughshare: Institute for Sustainable Culture - located in lil 'ole Waco, Texas.
http://www.sustainlife.org/
They offer some of the best hands-on classes that I've ever taken. If you have some time, take a class. You'll meet some truly delightful people, and learn something about mother nature and sustainability at the same time.
One of the things I most love about the Ploughshare courses are the class limit. They cap most classes at 10 people - small enough that everyone gets personal attention. We were fortunate yesterday that they were training new instructors so that the 9 of us students had the benefit of 5 or 6 seasoned soapmaking teachers - what a treat!
Before we jumped into our first recipe, we learned how to render tallow from beef fat - much easier, and less messy than I imagined. After that, we were taught two methods of making glycerin soap. We first made an olive, coconut and tallow spearmint soap using the "Hot" method. We followed this with a goat's milk, lavender, and oatmeal soap using the "Cold" processing method - this included the use of olive, palm, and coconut oil. Both turned out great!
I've included a picture of two of the soaps I finished yesterday - a goat's milk pine/rosemary bar - and a peppermint glycerin bar. Thought my gargoyle, Kobal, who stands watch at our front door, would provide an appropriate backdrop.
