Live.Simple. Simple ingredients. Simple to use. Simple to love.
Live.Simple.
My new motto. My new viewpoint. My new everything.
It's also the name of a new adventure I'm taking: homemade soap making. The idea behind it is quite, ahem, simple. Simple ingredients. Simple scents. Simple clean. Simple to use. Simple to love.
A friend and I went to The Prairie Peddler in Central Ohio last year to walk around in the bright October sun and take in the sights, sounds, and smells of autumn. While there, we discovered that we shared the same desire to learn to make soap. REAL soap. LYE soap. Saponified soap. SOAP soap. Your grandmother's soap. HER grandmother's soap. The soap of generations and generations before us. I think you get the idea.
Our interest was piqued at a particular cabin. In this cabin, we learned that the owner of the company offered soap making classes. So, we each took a flyer with us. The seed had been planted. The following Tuesday, I called and signed us up. 7 classes. One night a week. 40 miles one way. It.was.awesome.
We not only learned how to make soap, but *how to make* soap. The chemistry behind it. The method to the madness shall we say. We were each instructed to create our own recipe. What did we want our soap to do? Oddly enough, it doesn't simply clean. I learned that true soap has characteristics: lather, scent, feel, bubbles, moisture on the skin. Beyond that, there is always the next level of clearing up skin issues such as psoriasis, eczema, acne. I'm not at that level yet. But I'll get there.
Once I decided what I wanted my soap to do and how I wanted it to act, I created the recipe based on my knowledge of the ingredients. I learned that good quality ingredients produce good quality products. I learned that mistakes can be fun. I learned that I wanted to learn more. But what I really learned was that I loved doing it, my skin had never, ever felt better, and that I was extremely happy to share with my family and friends a non-toxic, natural, healthier way to clean the largest organ of the body.
I hope you will learn to love Live.Simple. as much as I have.