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Discordian Recipes / Suu's Soap Making Adventure.
« on: February 26, 2014, 03:21:25 pm »
So we do these little medieval craft swap thingies in my local group twice a year. So far I've made some clothing (duh,) drink syrups, and painted an icon in return for a lovely handcrafted wooden box with my coat of arms on it, some Roman-style jewelry, and a fantastic Byzantine hat. This round appears to be trickier, since it has a theme, spring or camping. I picked camping, but the recipient of my gift picked spring, and she likes the 16th Century and "useful things." Well, nothing screams more medieval and useful in the spring than stuff you need for your annual bath. 
(Trufax: They bathed more than once a year. More like once a month in the winter and once a week or more in the summer.)
Contrary to popular belief, soap was known to exist for a while, and although the Romans were aware of the cleansing properties of using oils to deter dirt from the skin and pores using a strigel, they washed wool with lye, good old fashioned sodium hydroxide, a natural byproduct of wood ash and rainwater, which is dozens times more caustic than baking soda. The lye reacted with the lanolin on the wool, and it got bubbly and low and behold, removed dirt. So prior to the 11th Century, some soaps, primarily used as laundry detergent not people detergent, because they didn't quite have the mix right and people were getting caustic burns...was made with tallow (lard) and lye. Sometime during the 11th/12th Century, the Spanish got smart and tried olive oil. This resulted in a gentler soap, and is still made today in the form of Castile soap, which I am about to try my hand at making. I'm also going to see if I can collect enough bacon grease to make soap that way also.
What I am about to achieve is 100% pure fucking SCIENCE. My measurements have to be pretty sharp. But first, I need something to scent the soap: Essential oil. I cannot legally distill my own oils, so I'm infusing olive oil with lavender for 12 days, replacing the flowers every 3 days per a document I found from the 1500s. I'm also going to make another batch to be used as a perfume, which I'm going to blend with water and grain alcohol.
So far, the fun stuff has been ordered. I should be able to make the soap next week. I found an Excel worksheet that does all the scary math for me, so all I need now are the ingredients and good food scale.
Here's my recipe:
32oz of Olive Oil
4oz of Lye
10oz of Water
I'm making a 2lb batch to start with, if in the event I fuck it up, it's not a real heavy loss of materials and I can start over. I'll make sure the husbandthing is home to take pictures of this, because I have a feeling it's going to be hysterical.
(Trufax: They bathed more than once a year. More like once a month in the winter and once a week or more in the summer.)
Contrary to popular belief, soap was known to exist for a while, and although the Romans were aware of the cleansing properties of using oils to deter dirt from the skin and pores using a strigel, they washed wool with lye, good old fashioned sodium hydroxide, a natural byproduct of wood ash and rainwater, which is dozens times more caustic than baking soda. The lye reacted with the lanolin on the wool, and it got bubbly and low and behold, removed dirt. So prior to the 11th Century, some soaps, primarily used as laundry detergent not people detergent, because they didn't quite have the mix right and people were getting caustic burns...was made with tallow (lard) and lye. Sometime during the 11th/12th Century, the Spanish got smart and tried olive oil. This resulted in a gentler soap, and is still made today in the form of Castile soap, which I am about to try my hand at making. I'm also going to see if I can collect enough bacon grease to make soap that way also.
What I am about to achieve is 100% pure fucking SCIENCE. My measurements have to be pretty sharp. But first, I need something to scent the soap: Essential oil. I cannot legally distill my own oils, so I'm infusing olive oil with lavender for 12 days, replacing the flowers every 3 days per a document I found from the 1500s. I'm also going to make another batch to be used as a perfume, which I'm going to blend with water and grain alcohol.
So far, the fun stuff has been ordered.
I should be able to make the soap next week. I found an Excel worksheet that does all the scary math for me, so all I need now are the ingredients and good food scale.Here's my recipe:
32oz of Olive Oil
4oz of Lye
10oz of Water
I'm making a 2lb batch to start with, if in the event I fuck it up, it's not a real heavy loss of materials and I can start over. I'll make sure the husbandthing is home to take pictures of this, because I have a feeling it's going to be hysterical.
