Cut roll of paper towels in half. Mix water, soap, and oil in container. Place paper towels in with cut edge down. Let sit a couple of hours until core is dark, then remove core. Pull towelettes from center of roll. We also use these wipes when we go camping or on picnics. Note: You may also use washcloths or squares of flannel instead of paper towels.
1 ounce (weight) beeswax
1/2 cup baby or mineral oil
Melt the beeswax in a microwave or a double boiler. Stir in the mineral oil. Remove the mixture from the heat and stir until cool.
Cradle cap most commonly a skin disease called seborrhea but sometimes a fungus—leaves a flaky, crusty yellowish flaky skin condition on the top of the baby’s head. Three ideas are to (a) wash the hair once a day and rub the scalp vigorously with a towel to remove as much as possible by friction; (b) rub the cradle cap with the old-fashioned remedy cocoa butter; and (c) make a slippery elm balm by melting in a double boiler 1/2 cup almond oil, 3 tablespoons slippery elm bark powder, and 2 tablespoons cocoa butter until melted; cool and place in a small glass jar. If you feel the problem is a fungus, add a few drops of grapefruit seed extract (available in health food stores) to your baby’s shampoo.
I have had many people tell me that they wanted to try soapmaking, but were discouraged by some of the soapmaking books they read. Often books have only large-sized recipes containing costly and hard to find ingredients. Most recipes list their ingredients by weight, because that is the most accurate way of doing things, but this can be another stumbling block for beginners. Most folks don't want to invest in a suitable scale just to try out a new hobby. But I want to help anyone who wants to make soap for themselves, so I am sharing my recipe for Tiny Angel Castile, because its has simple ingredients you can find at the supermarket and a mild basic nature that makes it a perfect place to start. I have recalculated the recipe so that you don't need to weigh out ingredients, you can measure by volume with measuring cups. This recipe is carefully calculated for just the ingredients listed below, do not make any substitutions. This is a recipe for beginners and people who just want something simple, if once you have tried this recipe you want to get into using more exotic oils and ingredients, get some books and start experimenting. If you do make soap using this recipe, please drop us a line and let us know how it turned out!
Before you get started...
Lye is potentially a very dangerous substance and must be handled with extreme caution. With the proper safety precautions, there is no reason for you to have any problems. That means rubber gloves, protective eyewear & clothing, no kids or animals running amok underfoot, etc. Never leave mixed lye-water on the counter or table unattended, you must find a safe and secure location for it to cool. Never use Aluminum utensils or pots for soapmaking, Lye reacts very badly with Aluminum. Lye is available in most supermarkets across the U.S., the most common name brand is "Red Devil" and it comes in a 12-ounce plastic can. Make sure it says "100% Lye" on the container. We specifically calculated the recipe to use the whole can of lye, so you don't have to measure it out or worry about what to do with any leftovers.
Olive Oil makes a great soap, a very hard, low-lathering bar that is long-lasting, cleans well, and is very mild - perfect for babies or those with sensitive skin. This recipe calls for a large tin of Berio Olive Oil (101 ounces or 3 qts & 5 oz or 3 Liters), as this is the most common and inexpensive brand in our area. If you can't find this size or brand, then just measure out 13 cups of any other Olive Oil, you should still get great results. About stirring: Olive oil soaps can take a very long time to reach trace with just hand-stirring, so we strongly recommend "hurrying it along" through the (careful!) use of a stick blender, hand mixer, or if you want to go the non-electric way, a manual egg beater. Overuse of blenders and beaters can cause premature emulsion of ingredients, to avoid this use them for a few seconds at a time, hand-stirring in between. Don't skimp on this step, a plain Olive Oil Soap that does not achieve full trace in the pot will NOT make good soap in the mold! With mechanical assistance, full trace should generally take less than 10 minutes.
The Mold we suggest for this is the plastic Rubbermaid Shoe Box, size is roughly 13" x 6" x 8" deep, with a snap-on plastic lid. Any plastic storage container of similar dimensions will work fine, as long as it has a lid. Once you fill the mold and snap on the lid, you will need to cover the mold with blankets to insulate the soap, this allows the saponification process to continue. During saponification, the block of soap will heat up a great deal and liquefy again, then cool off slowly and harden. Leave your block of soap undisturbed for at least 12 hours, then take a peek and see how it looks. It should be quite firm to the touch by this point, but don't unmold the soap yet if the mold or the soap still feels hot. If the soap is warm, just leave it alone until it cools completely. When you unmold the soap, you may notice some liquid on the soap block and mold, this is condensation from the heat of saponification. Just leave it, and it will be quickly reabsorbed into the soap. It is advisable to cut your block of soap into bars as soon as possible after unmolding, Olive Oil makes a very hard soap and it can be difficult to cut "perfect" bars without any chipping or breakage if you wait too long.
Tiny Angel Castile Soap Recipe
One 12-ounce can of Lye (Red Devil)
4 cups of Distilled Water (Chemical & mineral impurities in plain tap water can cause soapmaking problems)
One 101-ounce tin of Olive Oil (Berio) -or- 13 cups of Olive Oil
1 heat-proof container (Pyrex, Stainless Steel, Heavy-duty Plastic) for mixing the lye (at least 2 quart size)
1 large stainless steel or enamel pot for mixing soap (at least 1 gallon size)
1 spatula or spoon (Rubber or silicon)
1 plastic container with a lid (Rubbermaid "shoe box" size works great)
1. Pour your distilled water into the heat-proof container, then add the Lye and stir carefully with rubber spatula to mix and dissolve. This stuff will get hot, so watch out! It will also produce fumes for a few minutes, so it is best to mix it up and get away from it quickly until the fumes disperse. Then make sure to set the lye-water mixture aside in a safe place to cool off.
2. Once your lye has cooled to the point where the container is just warm to the touch, pour Olive Oil into your large mixing pot and heat on the stove. We want to heat the Olive Oil to approx. 100 degrees F, if you have a thermometer you can measure this exactly. Otherwise, just heat it up until the outside of the pot feels very warm to the touch, then remove the pot from the heat source.
3. Pour the lye-water mixture into the warm oil, very slowly and carefully to avoid spills, stirring the oil all the while with your spatula. The mixture will incorporate and become smoother, continue stirring for a couple of minutes to make sure everything is well-mixed. Then start using your stick blender or beater, for short intervals, hand-stirring in between. You will soon notice the mixture getting thicker and more opaque, that means trace is occurring. Keep stirring until you get a rather thick pudding-like consistency.
4. Pour soap mixture into mold, snap on lid, and cover with blankets. When it is ready, pop the block out the the mold and cut it into whatever sizes you like. Stack your soap on brown paper-lined shelves in a well-ventilated area, this soap should be aged and cured for approx. 4 weeks before use. Makes approx. 6 pounds of soap, which will yield 24 good-sized bars.
Place in a pan and melt over low heat till it is molten looking. Add whatever additions you wish, such as essential oils (1/2 part chamomile to 1 part lavendar is very soothing for children), fragrance oils, herbs, powdered milk, grains.
Perfect for cleaning the nursery or any area where baby plays.
The Five Basics of Nontoxic Cleaning
Baking Soda
This miraculous mineral has more uses for household cleaning than any other substance. It is made from soda ash, which is produced from a naturally occurring ore called trona, mined (by deep mining, as opposed to more damaging strip mining) in Wyoming. Baking soda is slightly alkaline, with a pH around 8.1 (7 is neutral), so it neutralizes acid-based odors in water and absorbs odors from the air. Sprinkled on a damp sponge or cloth, baking soda can be used as a gentle nonabrasive cleaner for kitchen counter tops, sinks, bathtubs, ovens, and fiberglass. It will eliminate perspiration odors and even neutralize the smell of many chemicals if you add up to a cup per load to the laundry. If you dislike the "new" smell of new clothes, soak them overnight in water plus a cup of baking soda. It is a useful air freshener, as many know from placing an open box of it in the refrigerator. It is also a fine carpet deodorizer: sprinkle it onto carpets and vacuum up an hour later. Last but not least, baking soda can help keep drain pipes clear when combined with boiling water.
Washing Soda
A chemical neighbor of baking soda, washing soda (sodium carbonate) is much more strongly alkaline, with a pH around 11, and is a heavy-duty cleaner. It is mined much like baking soda, but processed differently. Because it is quite caustic, it cannot be called nontoxic, and you should wear rubber gloves when using it. It releases no harmful fumes and is far safer than a commercial solvent formula. Washing soda cuts grease, cleans petroleum oils and dirt, removes wax or lipstick, and softens water. Washing soda is readily made into strong scouring powders and soft scrubbers, floor cleaners, and all-purpose cleaners. Traditionally used as a laundry detergent booster, it works well for that job too. It also neutralizes odors in the same way that baking soda does. Washing soda is too caustic to use on fiberglass, aluminum or waxed floors unless you intend to remove the wax. For heavy-duty jobs, make washing soda into a thick paste with water, apply, scrub and rinse well. For less intensive jobs mix 1/2 to 1 cup per gallon of water.
White Vinegar and Lemon Juice
White vinegar and lemon juice are acidic they neutralize alkaline, or caustic, substances. If you have trouble with mineral build up (scale) because of hard water, vinegar will eat it away. Acids dissolve gummy buildup and eat away tarnish. I have also found vinegar to be particularly good for removing dirt from wood surfaces.
Liquid Soaps and Detergent
Liquid soaps and detergents are necessary for cutting grease. Detergents are synthetic materials made up of surfactants (surface active agents), derived from vegetable oils, animal fat or petroleum constituents. Discovered and synthesized early in this century, detergents are considered an improvement over soap because they don’t react with hard water minerals. This protects clothes from getting gray, and prevents soap scum and film from forming on tiles, tubs, and sinks. The brands of liquid soaps and detergents that are the purest without dyes, perfumes and other additives are primarily found in health food stores. If you have hard water buy a detergent, if you have soft water you can use a real soap.
Disinfectants
For a substance to be registered by the EPA as a disinfectant, it must go through extensive and expensive tests. There is only one “natural disinfectant on the market that has been so registered (Power Herbal Disinfectant, available in health food stores). Two ingredients that folk legend claims kill bacteria and mold, and are very successful for disinfecting and killing mold, although no EPA registered, are Australian tea tree oil and grapefruit seed extract. Australian tea tree oil is one of the ingredients of the registered commercial product. Australian tea tree oil is an essential oil from the melaleuca tree. Tea tree oil has a strong but not unpleasant odor that dissipates after a few days. Australian tea tree oil is expensive, but a little goes a long way. A grapefruit seed extract spray can be made by adding 20 drops of extract to a quart of water. Both Australian tea tree oil and grapefruit seed extract are commonly available in health food stores.
Add boiling water to Knox geletin, stir until disolved. Add cold water, coloring and fragrance. You can fill tiny mason jars or small plastic tubs. They firm up on their own. They will not mildew or mold. I have one that is 2 months old and still smells great.
I just shake and spray the counter, the boards, the dish rack. This can also be used for air freshener, on furniture you want the cats to stay away from, carpeting where baby put its damp little bum before you realized there was something to be changed, as underarm deodorant, mouthspray, and as a cologne, if you like the woody aspect with the citrus! And as an asthmatic who is allergic to citrus, I can tell you this doesn't bother anyone except the cats!