FIMBY

My experimentation with making my own moisturizing cream is included in this week's Make It From Scratch Blog Carnival over at the funky Home Ec 101 What You Wish Your Mama Taught You.

Other entries that were of particular interest to me are:

• A lemon-lime body scrub that sounds good enough to eat in this summer heat.
• Kohlrabi Salad recipe. I'll have to remember this for next time we get this funny looking Brassica in our weekly share of farm vegetables. I'm so encouraged to see people buying and talking about their CSA farm shares. Yay, Yay, CSA!

Check out Chezart for this week's Make it From Scratch Blog Carnival. A link to my laundry soap recipe is posted there along with lots of cool "make it yourself" projects. I just love learning from other home-industrious people! There's even a recipe for making shampoo from soapwort plant - cool.

Last week's carnival featured a crocheted scrubbie that I'm hoping to make one of these years. I keep saving my plastic mesh onion bags in hopes of re-using them into something useful.

I'm sheepishly announcing that my mom won the prize, no favoritism, I promise!
Yesterday I wrote all the names on pieces of paper and Brienne (a non-reader) drew out the winner's name. Mom, this is kind of convenient considering your birthday is coming up. Now I can just send you the winning soap instead! Just joking (maybe).

Perhaps I wasn't clear in the original post but the winner of the soap isn't necessarily the name I'm choosing. I was using the soap as an incentive for some creative contributions and did I ever get some - thanks, you guys are great.

I have to say being a huge Johnny Cash fan I am partial to Orange Blossom Special, but I've decided to save that for a more orangey scented soap. Thanks Cindy for that great idea, by the way were you trying to increase your winning chances by posting three times?? I'm sure you're innocent of any wrong motives (wink, wink).

For those of you who don't know Cindy you can check out Harvest Hands Blog, the ministry she and her husband serve with in Los Anonos, Costa Rica. Great friends who we miss much since they have moved to Costa Rica.

So anyway what is the soap name I choose from all your creative entries? Sorry Rich, wasn't yours but I got a good laugh! Oh man, this was hard but I'm a blossom sort of gal, especially in this season and so the winner is Orange Lavender Blossom by my sis-in-law Amanda.

Thanks everyone for having some fun with me on this!

Ok, I'm going to be honest upfront, I love your comments. It's reassuring and somehow validating to know that someone, anyone, is reading what I've spent time writing. And maybe you're encouraged, enjoyed a pretty picture, had a laugh or can identify with growing gardens and the joys & struggles of 24/7 raising children. Either way I'm so glad you stop by and I want to hear from you.

So...I'm asking for help in naming my latest batch of soap. Yipee, it's a contest (I love blog contests) with a nice prize.

You see, I made a batch of soap a couple weeks ago and on paper all the ingredients sounded lovely and I planned to call it Carrot Blossom. But when I took it out of the box (I mold my soap in boxes lined with plastic bags) and cut it up it just didn't look or smell like Carrot Blossom. Here's a photo and the ingredients. What do you think it should be called?

Vegetable oil, carrot juice, olive oil, coconut oil, sodium hydroxide (lye), lavender, orange, sandalwood and patchouli essential oils.

The scent is predominantly lavender and sandalwood.

Post a comment with a soap name. It could be the dumbest most unique soap name on the planet, doesn't matter. Although if you think of a cool name that would be great. By the way, I don't sell my soaps - yet. So, your name won't make or break my soap sales. Just trying to generate some interesting comments and treat someone to a great prize.

Which is... 3 bars of my homemade soap. I currently have 3 different kinds to give:

• Coffee Soap- great for removing onion and garlic smell from fingers after cooking and also a lovely shower exfoliating bar.
• Gentle Oatmeal Soap - For sensitive skin, rich and moisturizing.
• As-of-yet Unnamed Orange Soap - smells and looks fabulous, though a little softer than I prefer, oops.

The winner will be chosen at random. I'd like to say I'll use some fancy random-prize-picker but I don't want to assume I'll get that many comments. Either way you can be assured I will not show any favoritism *smile*.

Thanks for commenting, this could be fun as I'm sure some of you are much more creative in the naming department than I.

Oh yeah, contest ends Sunday, June 15th (Father's Day) at midnight. I'll post the winner and send an e-mail. At which point I'll get your address so I can mail you your prize. Please don't post that info in your comment.

Yikes, I forgot this little detail in my previously posted soap directions:

I use cold water wash and rinse. For an extra large laundry load I use 1/4 cup of laundry mix plus a squirt (very technical measurement) of Sal Suds. Because the soap isn't finely grated I whisk the 1/4 cup with 1 cup or so of hot water to help it dissolve before I add it to the washing machine.

I'm sure none of the 3 readers of this blog have done anything with my soap recipe but maybe somebody out there will find this information helpful. Otherwise, disregard and go on using your favorite, but hopefully not environmentally toxic, laundry soap.

I've been trying for a couple years now to make all our own cleaning products. I've succeeded fairly well with cold process hand & body soaps. Clean, Naturally: Recipes for Body, Home, and Spirit
by Sandy Maine is a great start for basic soap making. And of course vinegar, baking soda and borax works for most household cleaning. Add a little Dr. Bronner's (we like peppermint , though tea tree sounds great too) for dirtier jobs like the floor, toilet and shower.

I am now making our own laundry soap and it's a bit complicated so it's not for everyone. But a friend asked me how I do it and I thought I'd share it here:

First, I make a cold process simple lard soap. This is the hardest part and you have to read some soap books or websites if you want to do this part. I'm not going to instruct you on soap making.

Simple Lard Soap:

4 lbs of lard - nasty, yucky stuff
28 oz water
8.5 oz of lye

When the soap is ready, takes about a month to cure, I grate most of it in the food processor, saving some for basic cleaning bars.

Laundry Mix:

12 cups washing soda, not the same as by similar to baking soda
8 cups borax
6 cups grated Simple Lard Soap

I use cold water wash and rinse. For an extra large laundry load I use 1/4 cup of laundry mix plus a squirt (very technical measurement) of Sal Suds. Because the soap isn't finely grated I whisk the 1/4 cup with 1 cup or so of hot water to help it dissolve before I add it to the washing machine.

For stains I scrub and lather a bar of Simple Lard Soap into the stain, or soak in a concentrated solution of water and Laundry Mix. I'll be honest, our clothes get stained and all the scrubbing in the world doesn't take some of them out, oh well.

I also use Sal Suds for my dishes. It's very concentrated so a little is all you need.

I make my own dishwasher soap as well. That recipe another time, if there's any interest.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 ounces blended oils
• 1 1/2 ounces coconut oil or cocoa butter
• 1/2 ounce beeswax
• 4 ounces distilled water
• 30 drops grapefruit seed extract
• 1/4 tsp. borax
• essential oils, optional

Method

Weigh the oils and beeswax. Melt over very low heat, stirring occasionally.

Remove the melted oils and beeswax from the stove and add the water and borax. Mix with hand blender or mixer until creamy & thick. Stir in grapefruit seed extract and essential oils (if using).

Store in jars with screw-on tops.

Notes

Suggested blended oils:
almond oil, apricot kernel oil, avocado oil, olive oil - on their own or infused with calendula (great for skin)
cocoa butter, grapeseed oil, jojoba, Shea butter, wheat germ oil

This cream should last for 4 months or so, but if you see mold growing, discard. If you pour it into several containers you can keep some in the fridge until you need them.

Making kitchen cosmetics requires cleanliness to inhibit bacterial growth. Purified or distilled water is used for this purpose. Also, thoroughly clean utensils and counter surfaces before weighing and mixing.

Borax helps mixture not separate.

Lotion goes on greasy but dries nice and is very softening & moisturizing especially during winter.

Source: Renee & Damien Tougas

Post-production Notes

I wasn't as pleased with this batch of moisturizer as my first. I forgot the borax, big mistake, the lotion is already starting to separate just one week after making it. I can't remember the exact proportion of ingredients I used the first time but I liked it better.

I do know I used calendula infused olive oil and quite a bit of cocoa butter. The smell was wonderful - like chocolate. Brienne always thought I'd been raiding some secret stash of chocolate after I'd put it on

My latest attempt at making beautiful and natural skincare products is body lotion. I literally whipped up a batch this afternoon. It looks and smells good enough to eat, which you could without any harm. No toxins, anti-bacterials, preservatives or unpronouncables. This is a new experiment for me and I think I'll keep one batch in the fridge so it keeps better. I smeared the pan "drippings" on my hands and it feels smooth and luscious - oh, that's a great word for a gray January afternoon!

Ingredients: distilled water, calendula infused olive oil, cocoa butter, almond oil, beeswax, vitamin e, grapefruit seed extract, teeny bit of borax.

I want to introduce you all to this cool web site called welltellme.com, a forum dedicated to natural health and wellbeing. I've gone there recently to figure out how to cure a UTI -lots of cranberry juice, blueberries, vit C and no sugar, how to make my own dishwasher soap - currently experimenting with 1/2 baking soda, 1/2 borax and a cup of vinegar in the rinse, how to make my own laundry soap and other stuff.

This site helps me find information based on other people's experiences, homemakers like myself, in the areas of gardening, herbs, soapmaking, natural home & body products and much more. I can't vouch for the nutrition section as I haven't visited it because we have that largely figured out for our family, at least until the next allergy pops up!

I encourage you to check it out. So far the best way to use the site, from my own experience, is to use the search feature for whatever I'm interested in. Otherwise I feel I could get lost in reading all the various threads. Let me know what you think.