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I've used uva ursi for urinary tract infections but didn't know of the topical use for skin lightening. I'll be interested to hear of your results!

That makes perfect sense. It wouldn't be soap because no oils are involved but lye water would dissolve the oily dirt in the cloth and the ground nixtamal would absorb it. That's really cool. Was your grandmother's mixture boiled with the clothes or rubbed on them and rinsed off?

I experimented with lots of different recipes when I was learning, then narrowed it down to five different ones: a 20% shea butter one that I load up with extra goodies and charge a little more for, a cocoa butter soap that is the recipe that I usually try new scents out in, a facial soap that I...

My soap does that if it overheats, I have wooden spacers to put underneath the molds and that seems to help. I have a few fragrances that do that, or if there's honey or milk in the batch. Customers will probably think you did it on purpose!

If you can afford to, you can set an extra bottle aside and let it age yourself. The good stuff is almost syrupy, and mellow.

I made a few more this afternoon. I didn't have enough potting soil to fill them so that will wait until tomorrow.

I've made the first few liters that you're supposed to throw away, and another couple of gallons of good water for the next time I make soap. I wondered if it would be possible to make distilled flower waters by putting the botanicals into a cotton bag inside the boiler part of the machine. Has...

Marsi, do you happen to know if there's any problem with mosquitoes using this system? Could they enter the bucket through the drainage hole or down the water tube to lay eggs in the reservoir bucket? We have a horrible mosquito problem here!

When I plant the bucket, should I water the plant in from the top like I would if I were planting it in the ground? Besides filling the reservoir below, of course. Would coconut coir be a better wicking agent in the cup than potting mix (or maybe it doesn't matter)? I'll incorporate the cloth...

Ale, I think that making wood ash lye soap is more of an art than a science, because of the variability of the ingredients. Boiling your lisciva to a standard strength or density is probably a knack perfected through practice and repetition. Here's some info I found that might be useful. Good...

I had to abandon the 3" hole cutter after a near-accident with the blade skittering off the plastic and nicking my jeans. It took longer but I used a regular drill bit (3/8"?) to drill lots of small holes In a 3" circle like perforations that I could cut out with a knife. The 1" (actually it...

Up until now I'd always bought my distilled water wherever I could get it cheaply. With the covid-19 panic buying, the local pharmacy is out of stock and the grocery store limits the amount you can buy. So I ordered from Amazon, and just finished setting up, a 4 liter stainless steel water...

I have only made them with melt & pour but if you pour at as thin a trace as possible you should be good. You might need to push them down until the soap has soaked into the luffa and all the air bubbles are out (mine tend to want to float). I use 3" silicon molds from WSP.

"Cold press" soap and confusing carrier/base oils and essential oils seems to go hand in hand.

I lived in Sardinia for 20 years, but I've been back in the US for the last 15. :) Yes, that would be my interpretation of the old document that you shared. I can imagine a stiff ground grain paste cooked with wood ash lye would clean pretty well, although it wouldn't be very gentle on the...

I know that hominy is dried corn kernels cooked and soaked in lye. When ground, that becomes masa for making the dough that becomes tortillas, tamales, etc. Masa is "doughier" than just corn meal, so maybe (guessing here) corn meal boiled for hours with lye water would become a solid cake of...

I saw that, but I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't understand it. It looks to me like it assumes you know what your "desired concentration of soap" is starting at various %'s of soap but not based on the different types of oil the soap was made of. On page 32 she mentioned that coconut oil...

Thanks!

Another covid-19 quarantine project: a way to use up all of those empty coconut oil pails. I must have about 40 of them stacked up in the basement. I decided to take out my raised garden beds because the trees have grown so big the beds are too shady now to grow tomatoes. Also, watering is my...

I have printed it out and think it will make more sense now that I've actually made a batch. Thanks!