We Like Making Our Own Stuff

This post is written especially for my homesteader friends--maybe you are raising pigs, or going in on a pig with someone--make sure you get that lard, and render it!  Not only is it great for cooking, but it also makes a nice bar of soap. Properly rendered lard should be white and fairly odorless.

It was one of the first things I learned when I began making my own soap; I read it in books and on the internet: "Always keep a jug of vinegar on hand when you are working with lye.  Vinegar neutralizes lye." Soapers, have you heard this?  Do you practice the habit of keeping vinegar nearby when you make your soaps?  So did I, until recently, when I read an interesting post on a soap forum, and then decided to research the claim myself.

Are you looking for ways to save money?  Who isn't nowadays? Every little thing you do helps and the small things really do add up.  Which is why I have a somewhat creepy tub of soap scraps in my bathroom. I admit, it seems a little weird to save soap scraps, but it wasn't always this way.  In fact, they used to have little contraptions for saving your soap scraps. But those days are gone.  Or are they? I think frugality is making a comeback--at least, it is around here, because I save all our soap scraps.  What do I do with them? Recycled Soap Scrap Bars If you are regular users of bar soap, a family of four can easily manage to get six additional bars of soap per year by saving soap scraps.  It doesn't seem like much, so I'll write it this way instead:  in ten years, that would be 60 bars of "free" soap.  There, that seems more impressive. Ingredients: Soap scraps Water Herbs (optional) 1.  Grate or fi...

Check out my slabs of fat. Luckily, they didn't come from my thighs.  This is suet, the fat from a cow usually found around the loins and kidneys.  (As a side note, lard, which is pig fat, can be rendered and used in the same way as tallow.) Why would you want big slabs of cow fat?  Where do you get them?  How do I turn that ugly slab of fat into something usable? Woah, woah, woah.  Let's take it a question at a time. What is suet used for? Suet is normally used to make tallow.  Tallow is rendered beef fat.  Tallow will remain solid at room temperature (similar to shortening, but a bit harder) and can be stored for long periods of time.  Tallow can be used for cooking, to make candles and soap, and even as a leather conditioner. Suet is also commonly used as bird food (see my post on Homemade Bird Treats ).  Also, if you have chickens, they will thank your for sharing some of your suet with them. Where can I get suet? If ...

In Part One of this series, we discussed what supplies are needed to make a batch of cold-process soap.  Hopefully everyone has had a chance to pick up the supplies on the shopping list, and is ready to get going. Before We Begin, a Safety Disclaimer... I have been making soap for a couple years now.  When I first began, I was afraid of the lye.  I had on goggles, gloves, long sleeves--basically, there was not a scrap of skin exposed any where on my body.  Now that I have been making soap for a while, I no longer wear the goggles and gloves.  Please understand that I am in no way saying you shouldn't wear goggles, gloves, or anything else to protect your body while making soap; after all, I did put those items on the supplies list.  I just choose not to, but that is my personal choice.  I have never been injured while making soap, but I understand that accidents do happen. The reason I am mentioning this is because you will likely notice in so...

  "What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul." I debated for some time whether or not I wanted to tackle the subject of soap-making in my blog.  It is not a complicated process, but people write entire books on the subject, so putting my "soaping" knowledge into a blog post seemed a daunting task. However, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it.  Of all the things I have learned on my path to self-sufficiency, I would have to say that making soap is one of the skills I am most proud of.  Soap can be used not only to clean our bodies, but also to make products that can be used to clean our homes and clothing, make a more earth-friendly pesticide, and even as a lubricant (no, not that kind of lubricant--as in rubbing a bar of soap on a rusty zipper to get it zipping again). With all this usefulness that soap provides, I finally decided that I had to blog about it.  If there is anyone out there reading this who is on the fence ...