Making Body Butter Bars

I have a project that I've been meaning to do for quite a while now. I had all the supplies, I worked out my process, everything was ready to go...........then 3 months went past. In the last three months I forgot all about my project, I have so many that's not a hard task for me but when I was reading Keeper of the Home yesterday my project came back to me. YES!

This idea originally came to me after my soon-to-be-husband fell in love with the Buffy Body Butter Bar from Lush. He didn't care so much about the exfoliation aspect, but he really enjoyed being able to moisturize in the shower. I was really happy that he enjoyed Lush's product (I like stuff from Lush, I figured it would be easier for me to get away with buying stuff from there), but they are $12 each. That was a cost that I couldn't stomach to pay all the time (and I didn't particularly care for the scent either). I found this great informative youtube video on how Lush makes its body butter bar and knew I could do it at home myself.

Body Butter Bars

You'll Need
Mold (I used a silicone cupcake tin)
Double boiler of some sort
Shea Butter
Coconut Oil
Beeswax

1) Determine how much weight your mold can hold. I did this by placing my mold on my kitchen scale, hitting tare, and pour water in to the desired fullness. If you're using something like a cupcake tin, or something with multiple cavities you can just fill one and then multiply by the number of cavities. My cavities held 2 oz of water, so I needed a total of 24 oz of oils.

2) Measure oils. I decided that I would use equal parts of beeswax, shea butter and coconut oil, so I measure out 8 oz of each.

**NOTE: When buying beeswax, it's probably better to buy the pastilles or 1 oz blocks. I bought the 1 lb blocks because they were cheaper (I regret that decision). It took me 10 minutes to figure out how I was going to break down that block of beeswax. I ended up just breaking it into pieces with a hammer.**


3) Melt oils. You can do this step however you feel comfortable. Options include in the microwave, crockpot or using some sort of double boiler. My double boiler was actually a steaming pot that I set a 4 cup, glass Pyrex measuring cup in (it made for easy pouring).

I did find that the oils melted faster if I put the lid on. Also the beeswax takes the longest to melt so you might want to put that on the bottom.

This is what everything looks like when it's melted. Those little bits on top are beeswax that didn't fully melt. (Don't worry about them)

4) Pour melted oil into mold.

5) Put mold in freezer. My bars were completely cooled in 33 minutes. (I know because that's exactly how long I was exercising)

6) Remove from mold and enjoy! After taking my bars out the mold, I wrapped the ones I didn't intend to use right away in wax paper and put them in the freezer. The one I'm currently using is in a metal tin in my bedroom.

That's it. It's super easy and doesn't require a lot of work. I guess the real question is economical is this?

7 lbs coconut oil: $17.95
5 lbs shea butter: $50.85
5 lbs beeswax: $52.60

7 lbs = 112 oz

5 lbs = 80 oz

17.95 / 112 = $0.16/oz coconut oil

50.85 / 80 = $0.64/oz shea butter

52.60 / 80 = $0.66/oz beeswax

($0.16 x 8) + ($0.64 x 8) + ($0.66 x 8) = $11.68 for 12 body butter bars

OR 

$0.97 per bar

Not to toot my own horn but I don't think anyone could deny that this wasn't a successful experiment. Up next I'm going to be making stick deodorant. I just have to find some of those little tubes first. 

Until next time, 

Kellan

Best Pancakes Ever......(and they're whole wheat)

Pancakes and I have a long relationship, they are my favorite food AND the first thing that I ever learned to cook. My love with cooking from scratch actually started with pancakes (I was a strange 10 year old). I've gone through several recipe variations over the years but I finally created the perfect recipe.

When I make these for people I don't tell them that they're whole wheat. If I did, most people I know wouldn't eat them. They assume that whole wheat pancakes are going to be heavy, gritty and gross. (I've had a few bad batches) These whole wheat pancakes, however, are light, fluffy AND super delicious. So make a batch and don't tell anybody they're whole wheat until after they've finished eating them.

Note: I honestly forgot to take pictures, but I think I'm going to make pancakes for dinner tomorrow, in which case I try to remember to snap a few shots and upload them. (Don't judge me)

BEST PANCAKE RECIPE EVER

13.5 oz soft wheat (if you don't mill your own flour then you need whole wheat pastry flour)

4 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1.5 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

3 cups buttermilk

1/2 cup milk

3 eggs

1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted

vanilla extract

cinnamon

Q: Kellan, do I really need to use soft wheat or whole wheat pastry flour for this recipe?

A: Yes. If you make this with hard wheat or regular whole wheat flour your pancakes won't turn out right. I accidentally used hard wheat recently, my pancakes were horrible. 

The great thing about this recipe is that there aren't any special instructions for mixing this up recipe. Pancakes should be simple. Put everything in a bowl (except the vanilla and cinnamon) and mix it together. It doesn't need to be thoroughly mixed either, lumps are ok. Just make sure everything is combined and then let it sit for 10 or 15 minutes. After 15 minutes everything will be properly hydrated and the lumps will be gone (I promise).

The secret to this recipe is that I don't measure the vanilla and cinnamon. I put in what I feel to be enough. If I were to guess I would assume that it's about 1.5 to 2 tbsp of vanilla and 2 tsp of cinnamon but I honestly don't know. Put as much feels right to you. 

I use a regular ladle to measure out my pancakes, this recipe usually yields about 12 plate-sized pancakes. I come from a family with pretty large men, my dad is 6'5", and I haven't met anyone yet that can eat more than 3 of these pancakes; not even my 19 year old brother. As you can see the pancake the size of the entire bottom of the pan.

This is the nutritional information per, my extra large, pancake:

Calories		210.1
Total Fat		7.6 g
	Saturated Fat	4.1 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	0.5 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	2.2 g
Cholesterol		63.2 mg
Sodium		435.9 mg
Potassium		111.9 mg
Total Carbohydrate		29.9 g
	Dietary Fiber	3.7 g
	Sugars	7.6 g
Protein		8.0 g

Vitamin A	6.0 %
Vitamin B-12	4.4 %
Vitamin B-6	2.1 %
Vitamin C	1.1 %
Vitamin D	3.5 %
Vitamin E	0.7 %
Calcium	15.7 %
Copper	0.4 %
Folate	2.3 %
Iron	1.9 %
Magnesium	1.8 %
Manganese	0.1 %
Niacin	0.2 %
Pantothenic Acid	1.8 %
Phosphorus	10.6 %
Riboflavin	8.2 %
Selenium	1.9 %
Thiamin	1.4 %
Zinc	2.7 %

This recipe also keeps really well so you can mix it up, make some pancakes and but the rest of the batter in the refrigerator to use later. Happy pancake eating. 

Until next time, 

Kellan

Making Liquid Laundry Soap

So a while ago, I said that I would do a post on making liquid laundry soap. Here it is: YAY!!!!! I find that making liquid soap is not only a lot more forgiving than making bar soap. I am sure that most people won't agree with me, but this is my blog so I can say what I want.

I make laundry soap from 100% coconut oil because in my research I've read that soap made from coconut oil a lot better than soap with other oil bases. It's also relatively easy obtain coconut oil, it's sold in the grocery store. I don't buy my coconut oil from the grocery store unless I'm in a bind and don't have any other option but it is doable.

The first thing you need to do is determine how much soap you want to end up with by weight. This is important because you need to know the total weight before you can figure out how much soap paste you need to make. I usually make a gallon of laundry soap at a time. A gallon of water weighs about 133.5 oz, so that's the number we're going to use. Please keep in mind I'm talking about weight not volume. When making liquid soap made from 100% coconut oil about 40% of the total weight of your finished product needs to be the soap paste (we'll get to this term later).

NOTE: The 40% ratio does not apply if other oils other/addition to coconut oil is used, to determine the dilution ratios look in Making Natural Liquid Soaps by Catherine Failor, this a a great book that is EXTREMELY necessary when making liquid soap. Please buy it before you try this.

You need 53.4 oz of soap paste to end up with a gallon of laundry soap.

 53.4 = 133.5 x 0.4

Catherine Failor suggests that the water needed to make your lye solution be 70% of total oils used for liquid soap. Also, there is no superfatting in liquid soap. Plug this info into your lye calculator and it will give you the following measurements for making your soap. (PLEASE REMEMBER THAT LIQUID SOAP REQUIRES POTASSIUM HYDROXIDE)

Total oil weight 53.4 Water as percent of oil weight 70 % Super Fat/Discount 0 % Lye Concentration 26.855 % Water : Lye Ratio 2.724:1

Sat : Unsat Ratio 89 : 11 Iodine INS Fragrance Ratio .7 Fragrance Weight 2.336 Oz

Ingredient	Pounds	Ounces	Grams
Water	2.336	37.38	1059.704
Lye - KOH	0.858	13.724	389.063

#	√	Oil/Fat	%	Pounds	Ounces	Grams
1		Coconut Oil, 76 deg	100	3.338	53.4	1513.863
		Totals	100	3.338	53.4	1513.863

Once you've gotten all this information, you basically follow the same method as making hot process soap. Check and stir the mixture every 30 minutes for about 3 hours on low, the translucent blob that you end up with after 3 hours is called soap paste. 

Once your soap paste is made you have two options 1) dilute it now or 2) store and dilute later. I dilute all my soap paste after I finish making it. Soap doesn't go bad so in my opinion it's better to just dilute it and be done. 

To dilute the soap paste you need to boil enough water equal to 60% of the total amount of laundry soap desired, in this instance that would be 80.1 oz. I would suggest boiling the water first and then measuring it, rather than measuring than boiling. Pour the boiling water in the crockpot, turn the crockpot on high, put the top on and walk away for about 30-45 minutes. After 30-45 minutes the soap paste should have softened and no longer stuck to the bottom of the crockpot. Using a metal spoon try to break the soap paste into smaller pieces, come back and check the soap about every 30 minutes until the soap paste is fully diluted. Fortunately soap made with an all coconut oil base the soap should be relatively easy to dilute. 

The next step is to neutralize the soap, because soap made from coconut oil will not thicken when borax is add, it doesn't make sense to add more than necessary, it's not going to get any thicker. Dissolve 0.85 oz of borax into 1.7oz of boiling water and add the mixture into the diluted soap.

After you've let the soap cool for a little while, any fragrances or essential oils that you want to add can be mixed in and the soap bottled. The amount of fragrance/essential oil depends on the manufacturer's recommendations. I use .7 oz per lb of soap paste. That's it your done. 

Each large load of clothes needs 1 oz of laundry soap, I happen to have a 1 oz scoop but if you don't 1/2 tbsp is the same thing. The gallon will do about 133 loads. This can also be used for baby clothes, just decrease or take out the fragrance/essential oils. 

While this is a long process, it really doesn't require a lot of your attention. The crockpot does most of the work. I guess the real question is if this is economical, well let's do the math shall we. 

7 lbs of coconut oil: $17.95

8 oz Lemongrass EO: $11.55

32 oz KOH: $16.51

7 lb = 112 oz

17.95 / 112 = $0.16/oz coconut oil

11.55 / 8 = $1.45/oz lemongrass EO

16.51 / 32 = $0.52/oz KOH

($0.16 x 53.4)+($1.45 x 2.35)+($0.52 x 13.72) = $19.09/gal liquid laundry soap

$19.09 / 133 = $0.14/load

Until next time, 

Kellan

Kellan, Where Have You Been?

So I've been MIA for a while.......I apologize. Life has been a little hectic. I've had a great combination of moving and being sick. Now that I'm done moving, I have to sort through and organize all my crap. I JUST dug out the supplies that I needed to make liquid laundry soap and that's because I desperately needed to make some (more on that later).

I'm going to get better..... I promise. I have a few fun projects that I want to experiment with, including a new bag design. I have to dig out all my fabric and sewing machines first (yes I said machines), but I hope to have that done by the end of the week. I also will be buying/building (probably building) a craft table because my old one literally fell apart in the move.

I have a new favorite website, Ana White. If you've never been on her site, it's EXCELLENT, please go check it out. I'm currently deciding which table I'm going to build and will be working on that later this week.

Lots of exciting announcements will be made soon but right now I have more digging in boxes to do. New experiments coming soon!

Until next time,
Kellan