It sounds simple enough, but it covers a lot of territory!
Buy less...
Eat less...
Waste less...
Make more items that we usually buy..ie: Bread, Bar soap, Laundry soap, Condiments, Vegetables, etc etc!
You would be surprised at how much money you can save your self, while reducing the gross chemical load you are exposed to in regular store bought foods and products.
You don't NEED preservatives. They are put there to keep the food stable for the masses... to maximize profit and reduce loss. I won't get all preachy here.... Its okay if you don't know about preservatives, but you should know.. you really shouldn't be eating them, or rubbing them on your skin. The information is out there, go to your search engine and ask it!!
Soap!!
Out of all the things you can do to save money, Soaps are one of the biggest savings you CAN do.It seems really intimidating, but if you can read a cook book and follow directions at school or work.. you can absolutely make soap yourself.
You will need:
- Time
- Lye (sodium hydroxide)
- Fat source (veggi, tallow, or lard)
- a BIG pot (non aluminum)
- non aluminum stirring things
You can find Lye in the hardware store, it will be in the plumbing section. (it is super caustic and is used to open clogged drains)
*ALL soap has LYE. Once the chemical reaction occurs the the lye is neutralized.
The purpose of this blog post is to motivate you to make your own soap, to show you its not that far out of reach. I will not share my exact recipe, because I didnt even write it down, and used what ever I had laying around for oils! There are MANY great websites that have all the steps and info you need to get started. Click here for great beginner website.
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* If you are vegan or vegetarian or ethically opposed to animal products in your soap, you can still make soap out of pure vegetable oils. but unfortunately .. there will be no significant cost savings for you...
**ALL commercial soap at the grocery store, unless it says clearly on the package "does not contain animal byproducts" contains some portion of animal fats, such as beef tallow or pig lard.
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So!
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| Beef Suet Chopped, ready to be rendered! |
- The first step is to get some beef suet from a local butcher or the grocery store. Sometimes you have to actually go to the meat section at the store and specifically request it. Most stores have it frozen in the back. I was able to find it for 1.39lb, which wasnt too bad. I purchased over 6lbs of it.
Just starting to melt down
2. The suet will look unappealing, and first must be rendered into tallow. This process takes a couple hours of boiling the fat and separating the solids
3. Once the fat has melted completely and all that remains is solid pieces or connective tissues, its time to strain it.
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| straining |
4. Once you have strained ALL of the solids out of it, pour it back into the pot and then add several inches of water. You then boil it on low for another hour, or two.
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| Adding water to clean fat |
5. Strain it one last time if needed.
6. Leave it in the pot, and put it in the fridge, or outside to cool. Once cooled, the tallow will solidify on the surface of the water and can be easily removed by dumping into a sink.
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| cooled, solidified tallow |
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| Clean pure tallow ready for soap making! |
I added Olive oil, raw cocoa butter, Coconut oil, canola oil in with the tallow.
8. Mix your lye crystals with water in a seperate plastic container, and do it in a well ventilated area. Lye mixture will have a chemical reaction with the H20, and will get burning hot.
9. once lye has cooled to correct temperature, and once the fat mixture has cooled to the same temperature (usually 110 degrees) you add them together in a NON aluminum pot.
10. You now must mix it until it begins to "trace".. which means thicken. I used quite a bit of olive oil, and did NOT have a hand stick blender... so it took me over an hour (almost 2 hours) of hand stirring to get the chemical reaction (trace) to occur.....better invest in a stick blender :)
11. once trace occurs, you can add your scents or additives. ie: oatmeal, herbs, spices, essential oils. I added peppermint leavesto mine.
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| box and trash bag molds |
12. pour into molds of some kind. A lot of people use (new) plastic kitty litter boxes. I had some cardboard boxes laying around and used garbage bags to line them.
You add swirls at this time if desired. I added raw cocoa powder to mine.
13. Let harden overnight, and remove from mold and cut!
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| ready to be cut! |
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| ready to sit and dry for 6 weeks! |
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| About 54 bars or 7lbs of soap. under $10 |
