Summer is over for many of you while it is just starting to warm up for some readers farther south. I use the change of seasons as my firm reminder for housekeeping and an environmental inventory of my home. Time to change air filters, replace batteries, check windows, and make sure my heating and cooling is running efficiently. It is also a great opportunity to phase out less efficient appliances or products and rethink alternatives that are better for the environment.
Homemade solution to cut plastic
We are trying extra hard to reduce our plastic and packaging consumption. One household step was doing away with bottled body wash and going back to using bar soap. A small no-brainer that uses way less packaging and really saves us money! When you think about it, bottled soap is just a diluted bar with added stabalizers. Basically we are just paying for the cost to bottle and transport the water in our wash. Our next experiment at home was a little more time consuming, involves more planning, but was lot more fun. My husband and I learned how ridiculously easy it was to make soap from scratch. You can buy all the raw ingredients just about anywhere in the world, then heat, mix, and let dry. You can custom make them using essential oils and scrubs with no artificial additives to stay gentle on your skin. One batch goes a long way and once you wrap it in paper it makes a great gift-giving solution.
Our homemade soap recipe and instructions:
Ingredients: ⅔ cup of coconut oil for lather. ⅔ cup olive oil for a hard bar gentle on your skin. ⅔ cup of other oil of your choice like almond oil, avocado, or sunflower. ¼ cup lye – also called 100% sodium hydroxide (found at a local hardware store). ¾ cup cool distilled water. Then your choice of essential oil, any dried herbs or spices, and a scrub (coffee grinds, dried and crushed peach pits, and charcoal bits are my favorite). You will also need a thermometer, soap molds (old food containers like yogurt cups work fine), and some old cooking equipment that you will no longer use for food.
- Using protective gear to keep your eyes, skin, and clothes safe, gently stir the lye into your water. Be sure to avoid accidentally breathing powder or any fumes. Once the lye is dissolved you can set it aside. Mixing water and lye creates an exothermic reaction that causes a dramatic temperature increase. Adding lye to room temperature water can cause the water to reach temperatures up to 200 ° F.
- Then, in another container, add your oils together equalling a full pint. Heat on a stovetop or in the microwave for a minute until it reaches about 120 degrees.
- By this time, both the water-lye solution and the oils should both be about 120 degrees. Monitor their temperature till they drop to somewhere between 95° and 105°. This temperature range is VERY IMPORTANT for soap making. When everything is the correct temperature, transfer the oils to a mixing bowl and slowly mix in the lye solution. Stir for 5 minutes as it thickens and turns lighter. After five minutes when the soap is a medium trace and is still pourable, mix-in your [optional] scrub and essential oils and pour the thickened liquid into a mold. Cover with an old towel or cloth and set it aside for at least 24 hours to allow for the saponification process of the base ingredients to become soap.
- After about a day when the soap hardens and cools, pop it out, cut into smaller pieces if need be, and place on a drying rack in a closet or garage. Let the soap dry out and “cure” for up to four weeks. Then use or wrap in paper for storage or to gift away!
If it is that easy, why keep it a secret?
To make soap-making even more fun, invite some friends for wine, tell them to bring their own essential oil, plus a scrub of their choice, and make it a group event. Then everyone can share a bar of their own creation. When I first heard about making soap for a greener household I filed that suggestion away with churning my own butter and sewing my own clothes- but it is actually really easy, realistic, and it makes a huge impact. Trying it out once is likely enough to make you never want to go back.
This was by far the most green solution we found for washing up at home. Do you have any other DIY tips, recipes, or suggestions? Let us know so we can share them!
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Safe travels and happy swimming,
Giacomo Abrusci
Executive Director
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