Simple Soap

To be able to make your own simple soap it such a great skill to know.  Lately, I learned how to make soap from a soap making friend.  She taught me some basic principles and I was on my way to making my OWN soap.  My husband made a wooden mold for me and I used my canned lard along with water and lye to start the process.  It was exciting!  I melted my lard and added specific amounts of lye and water mixture.  I poured it into the mold and it set up in one day.  Then I cut my bars and left them to cure for about 4 weeks.  Now we have soap for washing our hands, bodies, and hair!  Then I made some really great laundry soap with my bar soap.  It was just three simple ingredients:  One bar soap ground up, 1/2 cup of borax, and 1/2 cup of washing soda.  One tablespoon per load making the budget stretch- less than one penny per load!  I share this process on our new Homesteading for Beginners DVD Volume Four!