Soap

What you need
13 ounces of lye
5 cups of cold water
5lbs of fat
7oz coconut oil
7oz olive oil
4oz beeswax

(substitutions- weight for weight of oils and lard, and twice as much beeswax for lard)(simplified you would start out with 6lbs of lard)

I grated orange peel and lime peel and let dry overnight(1 orange and 1 lime)

I only had 1 tsp of citrus essential oil and I added in a few drops of lavender (next time I will use 2 tsp of EO)

mix lye and cold water, let cool
melt fat until clear and let cool until you feel resistence but not to the point of hard fat floating in there
pour lye (lye should be bathwater warm just feel outside of container) into fat (fat is still on stove, burner off)while stiring slowly. If fat seperates turn burner on until it warms back up and turn off.

Stir 25-ish minutes

It is time to add scent when you can make a line for a second in the top of soap

pour into greased container (I used a large tupperware and two bread loaf pans and filled them up so be prepared with enough container space)

(Here is where I sprinkled grated peelings onto top of soap for looks. I had to push the peelings into the soap, I used the head of a screw)

Put in oven (keep oven off) with the light on for some heat and pan of waterto keep it moist. I let my soap sit for a day and a half and pulled it out and set it on the counter. It was still too soft to take out of the pan so I left it on the counter for another day and it came out fine.

I have read that letting the soap age is a good thing. I don't really know why but I imagine it is so the bar is dry and won't fall apart so easy in water. I cut the soap blocks into bars with a knife and stacked the soap bars on an old recieving blanket, covered them up and set them out of the way. They say let them age for three weeks or so, but we'll see how long it takes for them to get dry enough.

One thing I did notice was my soap didn't lather but I looked it up and it is just a result of using alot of lard in the mixture. But it cleans great!

TADA! Thats it. Sure you can make this into an art of chemistry but this was the first time we ever made soap and ours turned out just fine and I made half this stuff up. So don't be afraid to just do it and experiment! And don't be discourage if yours doesn't turn out, research if you can use your failed soap over again in a different soap recipe.

Cost of one batch of soap $20-$25.00 for 40 bars. Once we are in the position to be able to "create" our own ingredients by using our our animal fat and create our own lye it will be cheaper, but for now we don't have those resources.

Homemade bar of soap $ .50 a bar Time to make 1 1/2hrs for 6 months of soap
Walmart Irish Spring $ .50 a bar
Being Self Sustainable PRICELESS