Fiber Fool

I mentioned last Friday that I had a good week a while back and won three blog contests. The third prize has never arrived. But actually the first to arrive was this lovely package from Lark Crafts. They have a relatively new craft blog that I am finding quite enjoyable (and no, not just because I won a prize from them). I was impressed with the packaging - it was a nice to look at and a joy to open but everything was nicely protected to survive shipping and handling from the east coast to the Rocky Mountains. Inside was a lovely handwritten note from Nicole whom I corresponded with about winning the prize. I just love how she wrote my name! I’ve always found my name difficult to write in a nice looking and interesting way. Something about the K…

Inside were two books - Soapmaking the Natural Way and Candlemaking the Natural Way both by Rebecca Ittner. They also included a bar of soap the staff had made and a bag of lavender buds to be used in making up own soap.

I will admit to not having cracked the candlemaking book yet. But the soapmaking book was perfect timing as my use of recipes in EcoBeauty and their results has really gotten me interested in relying less and less on beauty products on the store shelves. I’m having less skin problems (both acne and eczema) and I’m washing less chemicals down the drain. I haven’t yet gotten brave enough to take my haircare into my own hands yet, but one step at a time.

I had not paid attention to the soapmaking book’s subtitle “45 Melt-and-Pour Recipes Using Herbs, Flowers & Essential Oils” though so I was a bit surprised to see that the book was only melt and pour recipes. That had kind of disappointed me at first as I didn’t think melt and pour could be all natural. Once I sat down with the book and read the author’s note about how everyone defines “all natural” differently and how she was defining it for the book I was more open minded. Then as I explored the various recipes I got excited.

In reality, I’m not ready for cold process soapmaking. I have no clue where to source the lye from nor where we would have room for the soaps to cure. Plus, I can be pretty impatient so that curing time could really kill me. So this week I went thrifting in search of soap/beauty product only utensils and supplies. I hit two thirft stores, a dollar store and then finally conceded defeat on a few of the items and hit a big box home store for the last few items. I got a double boiler, some glass measuring cups, metal measuring spoons, some miscellaneous items that will make interesting molds, barbeque skewers to use to stir as I’ve been warned that the soap and waxes and such like to set up on what you are stirring with so smaller surface area is better.

I’m waiting on a few more supplies to arrive (hopefully tomorrow, but Monday’s holiday may push it to next Monday or Tuesday) and then I’m going to dive in with a Ladies’ Citrus Shaving Bar. I do not know what it is, but every shaving cream I’ve purchased in the last 2 years has a hugely strong chemical scent to it. Not a chemically derived perfume scent, a straight up chemical. A couple of them I just couldn’t even use as it sparked such horrific coughing. So this seems like a great place to start while I work my way through my stores of liquid shower gels and what not. I may also make a coffee laced bar as that is supposed to help remove kitchen odors from chopping onion and garlic. As much as I cook and cook with garlic and onion, I could really use some help with that!

I do need to start taking note of how much the various local options are charging for some of the consumable supplies - cocoa butter, shea butter, beeswax, sweet almond oil, jojoba oil etc. There are four places in town I know of where I can get at least some of those supplies. I’d like to buy local to support the community, plus the shipping weight adds up so I’m not certain if we would really save anything by ordering those. I could be proven wrong though. Time to fire up the spreadsheet to start tracking inventory and cost!

This is going to be one clean and fresh smelling household filled to the brim with preserves, LOL!