I have told this story before, but I was convinced I was going to blow up the house the first time I made soap. My friend and I looked like we were heading into a radioactive zone with the amount of safety gear we had on - goggles, hats, n95 masks before they were cool, gloves up to our elbows…we were ready. We were scared of the lye - each with childhood stories of its dangers. We cleared the room to mix that first spoon of lye with water…and nothing happened. Well, not nothing, because the water activated the sodium hydroxide that lye contains and started its magic work of turning the oils ..read more

Jump to Recipe A good Castile soap is a powerhouse of natural cleaning. Traditionally made just out of olive oil, it can come in hard or liquid soap varieties. It is the liquid soap we are making today and of any recipe on this course, it has been the one that has transformed my home and saved me a ton of money. To buy the most popular castile soap on the market, Dr Bronner’s, costs about £15 per litre. The recipe below will yield about 1.4kg of paste which will make up 11 litres of soap. Using very high quality oils, the recipe below cost me about £14, not including energy and time: £7 extr ..read more

Jump to printable recipe Making soap yourself is so easy. I remember being extremely daunted by the idea of the lye the first time I handled it. While it is dangerous if handled incorrectly, the whole process is actually glorifyingly easy, I immediately kicked myself for not starting soap making earlier. The phrase 'cold process' is slightly misleading in that the process is not actually cold, although following the initial melting of any solid oils such as coconut and palm oils, no further external heat is needed. With natural soap making, a chemical reaction takes place. Many people have the ..read more