Making soap is one of my favorite things to do--- lucky for me since i spend half  of my life elbow deep in my soap pot.  I love the smells, the colors, the oils and the herbs, discovering the properties of new ingredients, the  challenge of creating a new "flavor".  You should see how excited i get when i find a new shape of tart tin or jello mold on ebay to add to my collection.  But, what i really, really, really love is seeing all of my soaps drying on the rack, arranged by type and shape... oooh laa... all those shapes and colors!

Making hand milled soap is a two step process, one that takes about eight weeks to complete.  The first step is to make a Basic Soap by combining oils, water and lye.  Don't panic here, about the lye... it is impossible to make soap without lye, or sodium hydroxide for all you chemists,  and every soap you have ever and will ever use has lye in it.  So calm down and accept it, soap is made with lye. It's ok, really...luckily, by the time soap is soap, the lye is no longer present, it has saponified, or joined with the oils and water, thus changing the chemical composition of both lye and oil to make  a wonderful bar of awesome soap.

All of our soap are Castile  soaps, which means that the fat which makes up the soap is predominantly olive oil.  Olive Oil is a wonderful emollient, because it attracts moisture and holds it close to the skin, forming a breathable layer which encourages your body to maintain it's  own moisture level. In soap it is a gentle cleanser, and  soaps made with olive oil will  have a nice consistency and shelf life  and  will not dry your skin the way commercial soaps will.  For added suds and stability, i also use coconut oil, which brings deep conditioning and moisturizing  properties to the soap.

Once the basic soap has set up and cured for about two weeks, it is cut into chunks, and grated, or hand-milled into small pieces to be remelted with a water. Hand-Milling  makes a soap more stable, and gives it a longer life. Once  the soap is re-melted, ingredients that make each type of soap unique are added-- butters, oils, herbs, fruits, clays and essential oils-- the works.  The soap is then poured into molds-- i use old antique tart tins and jello molds which are a huge pain in the butt to deal with, but create a truly unique and charming little soap in the end. The molds are then frozen so that the soap can be easily removed.  Once out of the molds, the individual soaps cure for six weeks. 

The result is a beautiful, unique bar of Birdsong Botanicals Hand Milled Castile Soap.  Some are for your hands, some are for your face , others are for your body--- all will leave you clean and fresh and smelling  seriously fantastic!