Friday 28 June 2013

Turning caustic, skin-melting ingredients into healthy, skin-friendlysoap

I've always loved nice soaps but am far too cheap to buy the lovely artisan ones and far too lazy to run over town to buy them. Grocery store soap it is!
With my boys having some eczema, I've attempted to keep their skin as irritant free as possible. I started with getting rid of laundry detergent in favour of soap nuts (I'll do another post about those). Then I made my own wool dryer balls to get rid of dryer sheets (after much unravelling, I have now perfected those!). I've picked mild soaps but things haven't cleared up completely so I wanted to give natural, homemade soap a try. 
Instructions on Pinterest didn't seem to complicated and I was good at high school chemistry so why not?  Lye was rather intimidating but I'm adventurous.

First: steal a simple recipe online.

Check: http://www.orthogonalthought.com/blog/index.php/2008/05/homemade-natural-soap-basic-recipe/

Second: heed advice about long-sleeved shirt, glasses and gloves.

The kids are sleeping and there's no one home  drive me to the hospital.

Third: go for it!


It was easy enough. The lye mixing went smoothly with no accidents. Precautions seemed overkill until I started using the stick blender.  My red shirt is now covered in tiny black spots!  
I decided to add some ground oats for fun. Everything is now setting in my downstairs closet and my lye is safely stored away from little hands. Hopefully things will set nicely to cut in a couple of days and I'll have some nice soap in a month's time. 

Thursday 27 June 2013

Bucket List for 2013

So much to do so little time!  Here's the "to do" list I'm starting with:


House:

1. Finally get the house clean from top to bottom
2. Have house "sell ready" just in case we do put it on the market
3. Find a piece of land in the country to build on next summer
4. Paint my spare bedroom furniture purple
5. Repaint ugly man cave
6. Repaint pretty orange bathroom a more neutral colour

Projects:

7. Successfully make homemade soap
8. Successfully make a natural homemade eczema lotion for the twins
9. Sew something that I can be proud of
10. Get as many chemicals out of the house as possible
11. Try making homemade essential oils & fragrances

Just for Mommy:

12. Remember to take before and after pictures
13. Take a vacation
14. Try going no poo
15. Figure out if I can handle "natural" cosmetics
16. If I can handle "natural" cosmetics, how about hair dye??
17. Go after a job promotion
18. Monthly "date night" with hubby
19. Workout 3 days a week whenever it's even remotely possible

Joining the blog world- I'm so 2003!

Starting a blog in 2013?  You're likely already judging me.  I admit it- I'm not hip!  I'll try harder.

This will be my chronicle of my life as a working mom trying to do and have it all.  Not a big fan of keeping up with the Joneses- I'm far to cheap for that- but my aim is always to be the best mom I can, have an awesome career, and on top of that still have a beautiful home while staying sane and as debt free as possible.