Suzie Q

As soon as the good ole adolescent years hit, so did the pimples.  "It will go away when you get older," said many well meaning family members. My entire life I tried all the special wonderful cleansers that seemed to work for everyone else.  Those products had either no effect or made it worse.  Even a dermatologist was no help at all.  He just gave me a pill that made me feel nauseated the minute I took it.  After years of struggle, dieting, washing, not washing, moisturizing, and exfoliating nothing worked. After the birth of my youngest, my acne got to the worst it had ever been.  I broke out EVERYWHERE!  After a shower, all of my skin felt like it was on fire.  After extensive Googling, finally the connection was made the the problem was SLS (Sodium Laurel Sulfate).  Yes, this entire time my problem was being caused by all those cleaning products I had been using. At the same time the kids started having more eczema break outs also c...

This is not intended to teach you how to make soap, it is just a list of things I've learned after I started studying and making soap.  I actually haven't even been making soap until the beginning of this year, but I did an extensive amount of studying months before I made anything.  That counts right?  Anywho, These are just a few things I've learned for your entertainment. There is a big Difference between hot process soap and cold process soap When I was first looking up different ways to make soap (also how to make it without lye, we won't get into that) I saw two different methods, hot and cold.  My understanding at the time was if your oils and lye were at room temperature, it was cold process; and if you heated your oils and lye it was hot process.  So, at first I was thinking, "Oh cool I'm making hot process." Yeah, not really.  Hot process involves crock pots and hours of waiting, stirring.  Boy was I wrong. I have made an actual batch...