Soap Lily: Kudzu, who knew it would be so popular!

Monday - June 30, 2014

To recap, on Saturday we set up our Soap Lily tent at the quaint (original) log cabin that houses The Homestead House in Clarkesville, GA. http://www.homesteadhouseprimitives.com/

Every summer Leigh Johnson and her capable staff host a yard sale where several vendors combine with antique dealers selling their wares. Luckily the weather held and the rain didn't arrive until fifteen minutes after we packed up (seriously, we narrowly escaped being in the middle of a huge bubble bath).

We set up next to good friend and talented basket maker extraordinaire, Randy Sells. Not only does Randy make beautiful baskets, but she has also diversified into creating hand made cards with another friend, Mary Segur, in the Slanted Design Studio. Their cards are lovely, original works of art that take sending a gift card to a different universe. They look like works that you would frame and hang on your wall. Honestly.

If you are interested they can be contacted at 2slanteddesigns@gmail.com.

But, back to soap...The "yard sale" was fun. We sold soap, made new friends, connected with old ones, and beat the rain. It was a win win for all.

On Monday morning it was raining - not a soft summer shower but a grey, overcast and pouring rain. You might wonder why I am telling you this. The photos we took are a bit dark, and we had every light on we could find. Apologies in advance for the photography - the sun simply wasn't cooperating.

We got an early start making our second batch of Kudzu hot process (HP) soap. We've sold most of the first batch and the balance is promised, so it was time to make more.

Alison was elbow deep in the computer part of soap making, figuring our costs, ordering supplies, choosing scents, checking email, Etsy and fun stuff like that, so I made the soap.

Once again, since it is a repeat recipe it went pretty smoothly.

The colors we used are from +Bramble Berry - Chrome green and TD (titanium dioxide), and the Kudzu scent is from +Natures Garden.

We used the "old faithful" recipe which includes coconut, sustainable palm, castor and olive oils mixed with lye/water. Once I mixed the ingredients together and emulsified the ingredients, I put the lid on the crock pot and let it cook for about 15 minutes.

Since you have seen the hot process stages several times I am skipping to the end.

The soap is done. We both tried the "zap" test several times - no zap, so I added the Kudzu fragrance oil.

If only you could smell this picture!

We thoroughly mixed in the scent.

Next I mixed in the titanium dioxide to lighten the soap.

After I had the TD was completely mixed, I removed about one-third of the batter to a separate measuring cup.

To that small portion of the batter, I added the green colorant.

Once the green was completely mixed, I added it back into the white batter and folded it in, leaving plenty of separate white and green areas for contrast.

I added the mixed batter into the 18 bar mold, slinging it in rather hard to (hopefully) get rid of air bubbles. (Alison's editorial note: I wish I had recorded video of Kathy slinging the batter into the mold. She was like an angry artist flinging paint from her paintbrush onto her canvas. It was fun to watch her work!)

You can see the two colors swirled in the mold. This makes such a pretty soap!

Almost filled, we tamped the soap several times as we filled the mold, trying hard for no air

bubbles.

We inserted the dividers and set the soap aside to cure overnight. Once we began cleaning up, as Alison was washing out the crock, she noticed the lather on her hands. Amazing to think that less than 2 hours earlier our soap was just oils, lye and water, now we could wash our hands with the end result.

This is what the soap looked like on Tuesday morning, we let it sit overnight then unmolded it. We are happy to report there are very few air bubbles and soap is nice and hard.