Luxetruesoap.com

Watermelon soap available at AmeriGas, 15th and Broadway, Gary, Ind. This is just an end piece leftover from the loaf. (photo credit: Leslie McCloud) Anyone wanting to try natural soap can stop by AmeriGas at southeastern corner of Broadway and 15th Avenue in Gary, Indiana. It is across the street from the Plasma Bank, adjacent to the hand car wash, catty-korner from the post office on 15th and Broadway. (yeah, I said it.) The sign is white, red and blue.  My soaps will also be offered for retail sale at Beautiful Things in the Village but I have to wait until the soaps I made yesterday and cut this morning, dry. It takes a week. They last longer if they are dried before use. The owners at AmeriGas and Dr. Vernon Smith—owner of Beautiful Things—have agreed to display my soaps. Please ask for homemade soap and everyone there should know what you are speaking about. The soap costs $3. It was suggested my price point and market for luxury spa-quality soaps was misplace...

Whew! Two days have passed and I have been working intensely on Black Castor Oil Shampoo Bars and Wheatgrass and Black Tea Leaf Acne Wash. The wash can be used on face and body and is based in a castille-like soap with additives sulfur, wheatgrass and black tea leaf. The BCO Shampoo bar is comprised of the very same ingredients found int he BCO Infusion for Hair. I hot-processed both products with KOH and it took FOREVER to trace enough to get soap paste. Pictured (l to r) Sulfurirzed Body Wash for Acne, Black Castor Oil Shampoo Bars. photo credit: Leslie Jones McCloud

I am rebatching my Black Castor Oil Soap because it is too soft for my liking. I used KOH because that is all I have — or so I thought. When I first started soaping, I unknowingly used caustic soda to make liquid soap paste. It is cloudy so I don't use it. BCO soap/shampoo bar rebatch. Too soft for my liking. (photo credit Leslie Jones McCloud) Instead, I have incorporated the liquid soap in both my BCO soap/shampoo bar and my Sulfur Skin Soap. I intend to follow the old saying physician heal thy self so I make soap to solve my particular set of skin conditions. I have oily skin prone to break outs and I have large pores. We will see how this turns out for me. I'm cooking my Sulfur Face Soap down to paste: I added a previously made  liquid hand soap. It is hydrated with lavender hydrosol. Since I did not measure out the lye first, I only had 1.1 oz of caustic soda. I poured the KOH out in a separate container to finish out the lye requirement. I used lavender distilla...

Photo credit: Leslie Jones McCloud I like natural products so I make my own infusions. Pictured are (l to r) Rosemary Oil, Rose Oil and Vanilla Extract.