Soap

Daddy and I just made a, rather crude but it's mine, soap mold. We used cut offs of 1x6 planks from making one of our sheds, the inside dimensions are approximately 3.5" wide x 7" long x 2.5" deep. I'm not sure how much it'll hold, but I'm going to try it with 1.5lbs using the Green Tea Mint recipe I posted, just scaling it up. I'm waiting for the lye and other ingredients I ordered from Mountain Rose Herbs which is good because I want to take a piece of sandpaper to the mold to clean it up a bit, the wood has been sitting outside for at least a year.

A book I ordered came today, 'Elixir's Tonics and Teas' by Jeff Stein and Edgar Veytia. I flipped through it and I am now in love. It has some simple but useful recipes for just about everything and a lot of history and reference. There are two drinks I want to try, Study Hall Fizz and Sweet Memory Tea, they both sound yummy and useful.

Study Hall Fizz
2 floz pineapple juice
2 floz mango nectar
2 floz papaya nectar
1 dropper lycium
2 droppers red ginseng
4 oz seltzer or sparkling mineral water
small chunks of fresh pineapple

In a tall glass stir the juices and herbs together, add the seltzer and stir again. garnish with pineapple chunks.

Sweet Memory Tea
1 tsnp green tea leaves
1/4 tspn dried stevia
1 dropper ginkgo extract

Make a tea with the dried ingredient and hot ,but not quite boiling water. Let steep for three minutes then add the ginkgo extract.

I posted pictures on my Pictures Page if you want to see the mold we made.

First Recipe

Title- Green Tea Mint Soap								Creator- Margaret
Base= Green Tea		Fl oz- 4
Oil	Oz wt		Specific Gravity	Fl oz		% in recipe		Lye Table Excess Fat oz wt Lye
Aloe Extract	3					20		0		2.17
Coconut Oil	6			------		40		1		2.15
Neem Oil	.75		.908	.681		5		2		2.13
Olive Oil	3		.92	2.76		20		3		2.11
Bees Wax	2.25			------		15		4		2.09
								5		2.06
								6		2.04
								7		2.02
								8		2.00
								9		1.98
total	16					100		10		1.96
Additive	Oz wt		Fragrance/ Essential Oil		Oz wt		Specific gravity		Fl oz	Tspns
			Peppermint		0.30		.8993		.25	2

This is the first recipe I came up with and it'll be the first I try when everything gets here and we make the mold. I'm really excited to try soap making.

Sandalwood Shaving Soap

Title- Sandalwood Shaving Soap								Creator- Margaret
Base= Water		Fl oz- 5
Oil	Oz wt		Specific Gravity	Fl oz		% in recipe		Lye Table Excess Fat oz wt Lye
Aloe Extract	1					6.41		0		2.42
Coconut Oil	6			-------		38.46		1		2.39
Olive Oil	4.6		.92	4.232		29.49		2		2.37
Palm Oil	3		.92	2.76		19.23		3		2.34
Shea Butter	1			-------		6.41		4		2.32
								5		2.30
								6		2.27
								7		2.25
								8		2.22
								9		2.20
Total	15.6					100		10		2.17
Additive	Oz wt		Fragrance/ Essential Oil		Oz wt		Specific gravity		Fl oz	Tspns
Fuller's Earth Clay	1		Sandalwood		0.35		.992		.35	2.13
			Tea Tree		0.2		.889		.16	1.32

 

If I ever get around to trying this I thought it might be a good summery gift for Daddy when we go to Croatia, this batch would make enough for Uncle Jeremy too. I don't think that either of them use shaving soap, but it's the thought that counts right?

Soap

I've decided to try my hand at cold process soap making. Daddy and I are going to make a 1lb mold I drew up out of scrap 1 x 6 pieces of wood. I just bought the oils that I need for the actual soap, I have a recipe in my head that I worked out on the lye calculator on MMS and I think it'll work. The last thing I need to get is the lye, but I don't want to do that yet as I don't want that sitting around. My recipe is a blend of green tea and peppermint, I hope it turns out well. If it does I'll have four bars of home made soap and I'll bring a couple out to Croatia, I'll post the reciep if it works, if it doesn't I'll try rebatching it with some tweeking.

I've been editing Granny's manuscript and I'm more that half way through. As I re-format it gets shorter and shorter, it started out as over twohundred pages and it's now around onhundred and fifteen. I hope it isn't too short, but I should have the rough draft done by the end of the month, then I need to actually read through it and have someone else read it, I might e-mail it to one or two of my teachers from hs to see what they think. I hope I can get it published, I'm sure someone would be interested in publishing, I just don't know if I can afford to have it published, I'm sure my parents would help. Until next time, happy reading.

More editing and a few recipes

As I was editing Granny's manuscript I came across two traditional Dalmatian remedies for colds kidney stones and back ache

Dalmatian Winter Syrup
1 litre (1_ pints) of water.
Rogac (carob beans) about six pods.
8 dried figs.
10 prunes and a handful of wild mountain sage.
250gms (10oz) of sugar.
Bring water and sugar to boiling point, making sure the sugar has melted before it boils, as for jam making. Add all other ingredients and simmer for 2 or 3 hours until the fluid is a thick syrup. Strain and bottle for use in the case of a cough or sore throat. There are many carob, or John the Baptist trees on the island, including four in our garden.
A Syrup for Kidney Stones
A variation of the Dalmatian winter syrup includes a dozen almonds in their skins to the other ingredients. This is said to ease the presence of kidney stones or gravel in the kidneys.
Cure for Back Ache
To remedy backache the roots of the asparagus are dug up, beaten and boiled and the resulting liquid applied to the affected area of the back while still warm.

Just thought I would share those with you. Until next time, happy reading.

Muscle Mend

Back, again.

I have found recently that I can't live without Burt's Bees Muscle Mend. It helps with little scrapes and bruises and cuts down on some of the surface soreness in my knee. But it's really expensive and I'm really broke and can't work because of my knee and we're going to Croatia in July; so even if I could get a job now, I'd be taking off for a month about a month after I started. I looked up the ingredients and using my limited knowledge of creams and salves I came up with a fairly simple recipe for my own beeswax based muscle mend. The main focus is clove powder, for the antiseptic and numbing properties. So more bulletin board play and I have a pretty picture for you, sorry again if you can't read it on here, but if you click it you can see the full sized pic.

Still too poor to try to get the stuff to make this, but I'm getting there. Until next time, happy reading.

All pics and price quotes are from Mountain Rose Herbs no copyright infringement is intended.

Shampoo

Playing with the bulletin board again, this time a shampoo recipe that my friend gave me. She uses it and loves it, we have similar hair (long and straight) so I figured I'd try it when I had the money and time... so not yet. Hope this one is a little easier to read.
Still on the creative note, I've posted links to some of my better poems on the Creative Writing page. Still trying to find cheap private posting to link to my short stories so I din't have to waste space on here. Until next time, happy reading.


once again all pictures and price quotes are from Mountain Rose Herbs I own nothing and no copyright infringement is intended

Bruise Salve

First legitimate post!! So, I've been playing with the bulletin board app on the new Toshiba I got for graduation and decided to see what I could do. This is a blend of recipes that I found and have yet to try. If anyone wants to try it and tell me how it goes or has experience and can give me pointers that would be great!


sorry about the bad quality you can click it to see the full sized image, but here's what it says:

Ingredients

• 3oz Kokum Butter
• 1/2oz Calendula Flowers
• 1/4oz Fenugreek Seed
• 1/4oz Thyme Leaf
• 1oz St. John's Wort
• 2.5oz Kukui Nut Oil
  

Directions

1. Gently crush seeds with mortar and pestil (do not powder)
2. Put herbs and seed in medium wide-mouth jar
3. Cover with 2.5oz boiling oil
4. Let steep until cool
5. Melt butter in double boiler or microwave
6. Strain oil into butter and stir until smooth
7. Pour into tins or tubes and let set

Until next time, happy reading.




all pictures and price quotes(if you can read them) are from Mountain Rose Herbs, not copyright infringement is intended.