From Bones to Soap : Homemade soap experiment and 'Clean' Cleaning

I have been making my own soap for nearly 2 years now, I don't think I'll ever go back to the store brought stuff.  The main reason is that I know exactly what goes into my soaps; fats and oils, lye, water and some fragrant essential oils.  No nasty perfumes, numbered ingredients, parabens, sodium laural sulfates, all things I try to avoid.

Did you know our skin can absorb 80% of what you apply to it?

Think about that next time you slather creams, soaps and makeup on the largest organ of your body.  99% of what I use as ingredients for my soaps and moisturizers is edible.  My body, and my families', are a lot better off for it.

To give you an example; I stopped using commercial deodorants 2 years ago.  I suffered a few smelly weeks while my body purged all the gunk out of my pores - years of aluminum and goodness know what else had built up.  Now using mostly coconut oil and baking soda I still had a half a roll-on floating around in my handbag for an emergency.
I traveled to Auckland one weekend and forgot my homemade deodorant (the biggest annoyance of my coconut deodorant is that it needs to be in the fridge in summer) so I pulled out my Dove deodorant knocking around in my bag.  Just by the smell I should of know better.  The perfume smacked me round the face, chemical laden, fake smelling, disgusting.

All seemed fine that day, but fast forward to the next morning and boy oh boy did I feel disgusting.  My body felt poisoned, hung over, drained, dirty.  After using my homemade clean products for so long just one application of commercial deodorant was like I'd taken a small dose of poison.  It's amazing how everyday we apply layers of, well, crap to our skin.  Not realizing how we are slowly poisoning ourselves, oblivious to how good you can feel (and smell) without the junk they sell you for a small fortune on the supermarket shelves.

Making my tallow and soap

Straining the stock fat through a paper towel

 Anyway, moving on from my 'clean' rant - here is what brought about my latest post; being cheap!  I have become quite thrifty over the years, something I have become very proud of in fact.  So after making copious amounts of beef stock a couple of weeks back I decided that instead of binning the huge amount of fat that the bones produce, that I would give homemade tallow a go in my homemade soaps, instead of buying it.

First of all I gently melted down the fat that I skimmed off of the chilled stock and strained it though a paper towel.  To clean the fat further I boiled it with equal amounts of water for 15 minutes and left to set in the fridge.  I was left with wonderfully clean layer of tallow, that I dried and stored away in the fridge while I rode out a nasty flu virus.

Tallow after boiling, setting and drying

Now today, I have an empty house, we are all well so the kids are at school and my husband at work.  The fridge needs a clear out so I can across my tallow - soap making time.

I am very pleased with the results, so far, that fat did not smell too 'beefy' as I melted it and, for the soap makers, I achieved 'trace' during the saponification process with no trouble at all.

I love my essential oils - they smell so good

Safety first - homemade soap is not worth loosing my sight or a layer of skin

 I used my tallow, cocoa butter, lye, water, spearmint oil, pink grapefruit oil and teatree oil.

Tomorrow I will cut my soap and store it away to cure for 6 weeks - I look forward to trying it and letting you know the results!

All done, it just needs to set for 24 hours before cutting and curing for 6 weeks

Usually a 1kg batch of soap costs $16 to $20 dollars to make, which lasts me 4 to 6 months, depending on how much I give away.  This batch costs about $9 and it will make liquid soap for beside the sink, bars of soap for the shower and bath and laundry liquid.