The Art of Local Soap Making

This week Elizabeth, my neighbor and co-op partner, called to tell me that she was making Castile soap. Castile soap is a soap that is made exclusively from vegetable oil, and commonly used to refer to soap made from olive oil (you can find more information about Castile soap on Wikipedia here). Elizabeth is a soap maker, so making soap is not necessarily a unique event at Lizard's Creations, but today it was different. This particular batch is a milestone in a concept that she and I have been exploring with our Co-op: How to live more local?

Living the Vida Local

So how do we live the Vida Local? With vegetables, the answer is simple. We set a geographic radius (50 miles) and receive all of our vegetables grown from within this area. My lavender is also rather straight forward, the lavender is grown here on my farm, and the essential oils and hydrosols are manufactured here. A radius of zero. But when you go up the chain and start thinking about applying local to things like soaps, what does it mean? Elizabeth has of course always crafted her soaps locally. And as we started working together, she began integrating my local lavender oils and buds into the process. This got her to thinking: how far can I go using all local ingredients?

Many of her soaps include ingredients include oils such as palm oil, and other ingredients that are just not produced locally. But with creativity, there is always an answer. That is where a serendipitous meeting she had w/ Carmel Valley Olive Company created an opportunity. This local farm and producer of olive oil less than ten miles away. Elizabeth asked the essential question, can I make this into a locally made, and locally grown Castile soap? If the olive oil and the essential oils were local, then the bulk of the primary ingredients (save the lye used to induce saponification) would be entirely local as well. Imagine the carbon savings if gallons upon gallons of heavy oils were no longer shipped from abroad, but rather obtained locally from a few miles away!

Today was the day to put this ideal into practice. Being such a significant event, I grabbed my camera and headed over to watch and record the history.

Making Soap

Dressed in her blue and white soap making smock, Elizabeth had already prepared the lye mixtures according the careful measurements. I carefully handed her my contribution, Carmel Lavender essential oil from this year's harvest and distillation (read my previous blog entry on the Lavender Oil Harvest here). She was about to begin measuring the bounty from Carmel Valley Olive Company, so we went into her soap workshop to begin making local soap.

With soap making, the measurements are absolutely critical. Without precise measurements, the saponification process will not be right. And if the saponification is not right, the soap will not be right. Elizabeth began measuring out the oil very carefully on here scale. Look at the beautiful golden green color of the oil. The smell of delicious olives filled the room. What a wonderful way to start a soap. We also measured out the essential oil, and set it aside for later.

Next the oil needed to be heated to a precise temperature. For this, the oil was placed on the stove, and Elizabeth carefully monitored the temperature with a thermometer. Likewise, the lye solution I mentioned earlier needed to reach the proper temperature as well. interestingly, the reaction of the solution had naturally preheated the solution, so for this, it is a waiting game for the temperature to cool as the reaction slowed down. She told me that at times she could float the mixture in cool water to help cool it. But today, that was not necessary.

Once the oil and the lye solutions reached the proper temperatures, they were mixed together. This is where it got tricky. Elizabeth told me that the soap now needed to "trace". I.e. when saponification started, it should begin hardening. As you mix the solutions together, this leaves traces behind the spatula. The tricky part is that usually the soap recipes have other oils and fats in the mixture. Pure olive oil was a new experience. And apparently some of her research told her that the tracing stage could take some time. Or maybe never? We really didn't know. So we mixed. And mixed. And mixed. And mixed. After a few hours of mixing, Elizabeth made the call that the saponification was going to take some time if it were going to happen. She would monitor it through-out the day, and give me a ring if it started to trace. So at this point, I collected my camera, and called it a day. I left with a lot of anticipation. The idea of locally grown ingredients is very compelling. I very much wanted to get a good shot of the hardening soap in the mold. But this would have to wait until the soap is ready.

Soap History - The Soap Maker's Birthright

While we were waiting, Elizabeth pulled out an old dry cake of soap in a dish. "Here, look at this" she told me. She continued that this cake of soap was made by her grandmother in the 1940's. You can see the dry cake of antique soap in the photo to the right. It turns out that Elizabeth's grandmother was a soap maker. She made handmade soaps in Nebraska during the war. Her contribution to the war effort. Coincidentally, her grandmother was also called Elizabeth. And even though Elizabeth told me that she never had the opportunity to learn soap making from her grandmother, I felt that the connection was an important one. For 70 years soap had been made in her family. The basic process of saponification has remained the same, and so must have been the need for precise temperature and measurements. And yet in a world that is so different. Here we are today, trying to simplify life by making local products. A luxury in today's time, thought most likely a necessity in yesterday of 70 years.

Meanwhile, back in good ole' 2008...

I had returned home. I called that evening, but no trace. I called the next day, still no trace. We were starting to lose heart. Perhaps no amount of patience would bring saponification. On the third day, I called, and almost reluctantly asked, "well, did it trace?" YES! It had traced! Apparently we were a day short on the patience. Today it was hardening. Elizabeth had already poured the soap mixture into the molds. But I wanted a victory shot for this article. So I picked up my camera and headed over. Wow, what a color! The dark golden green had changed to a buttery yellow / beige. The soap was not solid and no longer even jiggling in the wooden mold. Here the soap will rest, probably for a couple of weeks to further harden and cure.

Once the soap completes the curing process, it will be removed from the mold, cut into bars, and wrapped in the signature wrapping of Lizard's Creations. The locally made and locally grown soaps will be available in locally owned retail shops, such as the Diamond Horseshoe in Carmel Valley, as well as through the Co-op (you can purchase Lizard Creations soaps at the coop website here).

A beautiful soap for a beautiful dream. I feel fortunate to be part of the journey to rediscover how to work together as a community to provide for the essentials of our life, be them food, soaps, or whatever.