My first box of supplies arrived today from Mountain Rose Herbs. I spent the afternoon setting up my kitchen and finished off by making an experimental hair conditioner recipe. If I like it, I will post it for other people to use.
First, some general notes on oils and safety… Since some people are asking about soap-making who have never done this, I feel it is important to post these. Some of the oils that you work with in soap-making are very potent. As my doctor likes to remind me, natural does not necessarily mean gentle or something you can assume safe, and you can still have a reaction to it. In particular, essential oils are highly concentrated forms of plant substances. If you use them, take time to learn about them and respect their power. Before buying oils, consider whether anyone in your household is allergic to the plant. If you have an oil spill, understand whether the oil is safe to expose your skin to during the clean-up process. Likewise, understand an oil’s potential impact on your animals or children.
I do not use oils that are toxic to the skin. Likewise, I do not keep oils in the house to which I am allergic. These are two choices that I made based on my own personal situation. First, I am primarily working with skin care recipes, and I wanted oils that are gentle enough that they would not harm me if some drops got on my skin outside the recipe. Second, I have severe environmental allergies, and I need to remain safe during this process. I have mild reactions to a number of plants and don’t worry about it. However, oils are very concentrated.: if I was exposed to more than a very few drops of an oil from a plant that I am allergic to, I could have a much more serious reaction than I might expect.
A note about pets: Essential oils can be extremely toxic to pets. If your pets’ food and/or water bowls are near your soaping area, pick them up and wash them out after your soaping adventure, especially if you have spilled any oils. Your pets will not necessarily avoid what is toxic to them; in fact, some things that are toxic attract them. Likewise, ensure that your floors are clean for pets to walk on. In summary, always clean your soaping area thoroughly immediately following your soaping activity, even if you are tired.
A few initial observations on blindness and soap/cosmetic-making… I will probably have to throw these kinds of observations into my posts from time to time, but for now here are a few based on questions people have been asking. I have never worked with hot or cold process soap-making requiring use of lye. The primary reasons were twofold: (1) I have not had a proper space for doing this (outdoors) in the past; and (2) perhaps more importantly, this process requires a person to be able to see when certain things happen to the soap, and I cannot see this happening. So I have limited my soap work to melt-and-pour soap and rebatch soap, both of which can be done safely in the kitchen using a double boiler or makeshift arrangement using a large skillet and smaller pot.
Incidentally, soap-makers recommend using separate dishes for making soap/cosmetics from what you use for general cooking. This is a practice I uphold; and I also wash my soaping dishes apart from my cooking dishes. I do not have a dishwasher, so for me the following is irrelevant. For others, it may not be. Some soap molds and other items you would use in soap-making may not be dishwasher safe. Pay very close attention to what you wash where.
Some soaping recipes specify so many drops of essential oils. Since I cannot see the drops coming out, it is impossible to meet these requirements exactly. Several things are important to know when it comes to these recipes. First, drop measurements are, to some extent a matter of preference. Four or six drops do not make that much difference in the grand scheme of things, and I may find I like six drops better anyway. I chose not to be fussy about it.
One glass dropper, when full, is equal to 20 drops of oil. As I became comfortable with the use of droppers and oils, I learned to fill the dropper only partially if I wanted fewer drops. I still never came up with precise drop measurements; but I could avoid getting 20 drops into a ten-drop recipe.
Today’s lesson in use of essential oile: don’t take the dropper out of the bottle too quickly. It results in lost oil that goes all over the counter. The secondary lesson: do not beat yourself up for making such mistakes! It will only cause you to make yet more mistakes and ruin your batch.
To go along with these things: It is a good idea to work over another surface that can contain your spills (e.g. an old cookie sheet that you don’t cook on anymore). This should not be anything you share with your cooking. I cannot stress enough that soaping and cooking are two separate entities. Working over a surface like this allows for mopping up spills easily and washing out the cookie sheet afterward.
Pouring: Soaping and cosmetic recipes more often than not have you pouring water into oils, soap into molds, lotion into bottles, etc. A good set of measuring cups with lips and a funnel are very useful for this. I pour in small amounts via the funnel, and a great amount of mess is avoided. All of my bottling is done over the sink–there is sometimes overflow, even with the funnel. I just put the caps on and rinse and dry the outsides of the bottles.
Most important lesson: As I shook my hair conditioner up for the 40th time and said that I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out, Kevin had to remind me today that it was ok to experiment and perhaps fail. Of course, I know this–I have documentation of a bunch of steps I took along the way to learning to make lotion while living in florida. (This one is too thick. This one won’t come out of the bottle. This one is sticky. This one is watery…) Every recipe you find online, even those on soap-making sites, isn’t going to be one you like. It is ok to modify them to your own preference, and to guess at what you might like. I have said this to people when teaching them to cook, and now I will say it to people who are new to soaping. The important thing is to make some kind of note about what you did so that if you like it you can do it again, or if you don’t like it you can troubleshoot it and fix it. This goes back to not being mad at yourself for spilling or messing something up… If you are mad, you will not be troubleshooting what went wrong, and you will miss an opportunity to make something beaurtiful out of whatever you didn’t like this time.
Incidentally, I tested a tiny bit of hair conditioner on my palm to see if I liked the texture. It is more of a hair lotion than what I am accustomed to from store-bought conditioners. I do like the texture… There is promise, and I just may have to wash my hair tonight!
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