I’m thinking about registering omgyou’resuchahippie.com to post this kind of stuff.

I took a soap-making class yesterday! It was super fun and I was surprised because making soap is not that hard. I read tons online a few months ago and bought all the supplies to make soap. But everything I read made it sound so complicated. I found myself intimidated by the whole process (especially the lye!) and never tried it.

Luckily, Spring Creek Homesteading offered a class on how to make soap for all of 10 bucks. What a great opportunity to take all the scariness out of something like soap-making! If you take the proper precautions while mixing the lye, it’s basically melt fat, mix lye, let them both get to 100 degrees, pour together and stir. And stir. And stir…. and stir some more. There’s a LOT of stirring involved. In 2 weeks I’ll find out if my soap really worked and I can’t wait to make more!

After the class, I was quite inspired to take on a few easy projects I’d been thinking about trying. First, I made solid perfume. Basically, you melt beeswax and whatever carrier oil you desire, then add essential oils. I had a small container, so I halved the recipe linked above. I wish I had added more essential oils, though. The scent is pretty subtle and given that the perfume is very solid, you’ll want it to smell fairly strong.

I do love the scent I chose, though! It was roughly equal parts bergamot, orange and lavender essential oils. It’s a very fresh and pretty scent!

Today’s project was lotion. Looking around the internet, I had a hard time finding a recipe for lotion that wasn’t a lotion bar. I do want to try to make lotion bars, but I need regular old lotion right now! After some searching, I found this beeswax lotion.

The recipe is very easy and adaptable. I skipped the vitamin E oil, and replaced a couple teaspoons of coconut oil with cocoa butter (since the two have similar consistencies at room temperature). I also used a combination of jojoba and almond oil instead of olive oil. I was a little worried I’d smell like an Italian restaurant.

The lotion is very thick and luxurious, so a little goes a long way! It really seems to sink into the skin, though, and does a wonderful job of moisturizing! My elbows were very dry and nasty before trying out the new lotion and now they’re like so soft!

I’m going to claim success on these two recipes! I’ll let you know how the soap comes out, as well, and post about the milling process.