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I’m now nostalgic for last week, when we were just bored and talking about our new hobbies. That seems like a simpler time now. In Tuesday’s Amazon post I mentioned an interview with Marcia Gay Harden talking about making soap. I added all the products to my cart for that and they’re over $80 with the little dried flowers and I didn’t even get scents yet! So if I make 20 bars of soap from that I paid about $4 a bar. The cost would go down if I just have to replenish the soap base, but it’s still not a cheap hobby. It sounds like an easy one that creates awesome gifts though, which is how she sold me on it in this interview.
Marcia is promoting her show Barkskins, on National Geographic, based on a novel by Annie Proulx. (I love Proulx but I haven’t read that book yet.) She told People that she’s at home, presumably with her three young adult children, daughter Eulala, 21, and 16 year-old twins, daughter Julitta and son Hudson. (I remember when she had those twins and I can’t believe they’re 16 now, but I can’t believe my son is 15 either.) They’re all getting crafty together, doing Lego, sewing and baking, and her new thing is soap making.
We’ve just gotten all really crafty. I got into making soaps, my son made a dress, my daughter made a skirt. We’re baking. We’re Harry Potter addicts so we’re building lego things. We’re just doing whatever we can to stay creative and stay busy.
I don’t even know why or how [I started making soaps]. I saw something on YouTube, I was like ‘that was really easy.’ It’s literally melt and pour. I love flowers, my mother was a Japanese flower arranger, so I always collect flowers and dry them with something called silica. You melt it in the microwave, you color it, you scent it and you pour it.
She had me at “really easy” and “microwave.” In Tuesday’s post emkay commented that you can mix and swirl the colors and add things like honey, rosemary and dried orange peels to the soap mix. There’s a beginning soap-making kit that she recommended by a brand called Life of the Party. I’m sorry that I just bought the last one in stock! I have done that before with stuff I was going to recommend and just bought it for myself, which always makes me feel guilty. The oatmeal vanilla soap-making kit is still available though. Anyway I’m not very crafty and I don’t have much patience for crafts but this sounds right up my alley.
Look how pretty these are! I would pay good money for these. She has the same molds we featured from Amazon! (Those are the second and third photos.) She’s even embedding loofahs in there.
I personally much prefer liquid soap, but they are pretty to look at. I guess it’s an addictive hobby aswell. An ex of mine really got into it and couldn’t stop talking about soap for half a year, so be careful 😀
I am trying so hard these days to not buy things I don’t really, really need. Maybe I’ll rehome my candles and make soap cause this looks fun.
She looks GREAT!
I make my own soap and it’s fun. But I do cold and hot processed not the melt and pour so it’s a bit more labor intensive. But I love goat milk soap, especially in the winter when my skin gets really dried out. I also use my goat milk soap on my kids because the eczema gets awful.
I have always had terrible eczema so I’ll try goat milk soap, thanks green bunny!
I’ve started making foaming liquid soap. Now THAT’S easy. I’m mostly doing it because I have a ridiculous amount of mint growing in my backyard and need to do something with it and that was the catalyst. I also have way too much rosemary. It’s like a Goop lab in my backyard, too bad I’m not into diy’ing stuff with those two ingredients.
It’s the best. But look for soap made with milk and not powered milk because you want all the fats. My favorite place to buy before I started making my own was mama’s milk shopp. She got her milk from her goats on site and triple milled so they lasted forever. But she’s taking a break right now. And after you bathe, I immediately put Cetaphil cream (not the lotion, the cream is much thicker) on their skin. And if they were really bad, I’d put hydrocortisone ointment (the ointment is hydrates better than cream) and then put the Cetaphil on.
Omg this totally made my day! I am so glad that the advice was helpful! I hope you enjoy soap-making—it’s so relaxing! 🥰