Milk Soap

Given that I never actually learned how to make milk soap last year, I decided I would make it my "learn a new sustainable skill for the month of March" and enrolled in a class.  Yep, when all else fails, take a class. I have to admit, given all the tools you need, I am glad that the first time I did it, I did it as part of a class where they had all the tools for me.   

With the exception of the lye being caustic, the process itself actually was not that hard.  Special care was taken to ensure no one touched or breathed in the lye, but other than that: fairly simple.  In addition to the caustic part, I realized it is most certainly a two man process.  While one person is dealing with the lye, the other is trying to get the fats to the same temperature.  Then there is a quick, frantic process where everything is added together, mixed and then.......you wait.  You wait for over 24 hours to take it out of the mold (as you can see in the picture below, I did not execute that process well).  Then you wait four weeks for the soap to dry out enough that it won't disintegrate when it gets into the water.  

I have no idea how it turned out yet, but my guest room sure does smell good.