Hanna's Garden Soap



My daughter, Hanna, raised a lovely garden this past summer that included lavender.  She saved some leaves for us to make soap with.  The leaves were allowed to dry naturally and then they were crumbled by hand.  So far so good!  We are anticipating a lovely soap with lovely lavender fragrance. 



The day after Thanksgiving Hanna and I decided to make the lavender soap.   Hanna measured out all the ingredients:  Tallow, palm oil, soybean oil, olive oil, coconut oil, fragrance oil, and, of course, the ground lavender leaves.  The soapmaking process was in motion!  After diligent stirring on Hanna’s part the mixture had begun to thicken and show signs of trace. 

 

At that point, Hanna poured the soapy mixture into the mold.  (The mold you see here, by the way, is an ongoing project.  I will try to comment on the mold itself in a future post.)  We put the top on the mold, covered it with insulation (a sleeping bag), and then tucked it in for a long winter’s night. 



The following evening the soap block was taken out of the mold and was ready for cutting.  It was first cut into loaves and then placed on the bar cutter.  The soap block yielded 36 bars of soap. 

This batch of soap had some surprises for us, however.  Since this was a “just-for-fun” batch of soap we didn’t know how much colorant to add so we added it directly to the soap mixture a teaspoon at a time.  While the soap has an overall color that we wanted, there are little flecks throughout that we didn’t want. The ground-up   lavender leaves are visible, but obscure.  What was most disappointing, however, was the fragrance itself.  It has seemed to fade very quickly.  

  

Report Card:

• Delete tallow from the ingredient list. 
• Now that we know how much colorant to use, it will be premixed before adding to the main soap batch.
• More lavender leaves! 
• Use lavender essential oil or try a different lavender fragrance oil.  (Fragrance oils usually have a component of essential oil in them.)  
• This soap needs some tweaking as noted above before the next batch, but overall it is perfectly good soap to use.  It is actually being used in our bath right now and it lathers up quite nicely!  However, it’s back to the drawing board for Hanna’s Garden Soap. 

What to do with all this soap now? 

When you are a soapmaker there is always soap piled up high in your home.  So … I have decided to give Hanna’s Garden Soap to anyone who would like a free bar at the Marmarth, North Dakota, craft sale. 

Just remember that this soap is a Work In Progress!  It is perfectly safe to use; the recipe just needs to be improved.  While Hanna and I are working on our soap recipe you all can benefit from our grand experiment!   

Happy Bathing!