Coming Soon: New All Natural Products!

    I have become increasingly aware of how much I don't want my own family to use products containing artificial fragrances or preservatives. These artificial fragrances and preservatives can be incredibly dangerous to our health.
    So from now on we will be making all of our products 100% natural.  I will be expanding my products to include milk soaps, such as goat milk and coconut milk soaps, as well as a number of new soapy creations.  I am looking forward to creating some new items!  Look for them soon, and don't forget to follow our progress on the blog.

Big Sale !

To celebrate the Grand Opening of our New Website and much improved shopping cart, we have a very special offer for you:

$5.00 OFF any order over $25!

Plus we offer Free Priority Shipping for orders of $50!

Offer expires 8/1/2010, so hurry and use your $5.00 and fall in love with our extremely high quality, natural, handcrafted products!

Thank You & God Bless!
Rebecca & Brian Smith, Owners
Avalon Soapworks

You can redeem this coupon during checkout. Just enter the code in the box provided, and click on the redeem button.

The coupon code is 9928500f69
The coupon is valid between 07/08/2010 and 08/01/2010

How to Make Cold Processed Soap

     Making your own homemade soap is not only providing your family with a great natural product, but it is also really addictive.  I love making soap. The only thing I love more is teaching other people how to make soap for themselves.  So I am going to try and teach you how to make a very basic soap. It is really simple.

**Always wear disposable gloves to protect your hands, sodium hydroxide is dangerous.
**Keep vinegar around to neutralize the sodium hydroxide (lye)


Step 1
              Measure your water and lye accurately.

Step 2    Mix the lye into the water, carefully.  This solution will get very hot and will burn you badly if it gets on your skin.  Use the vinegar if you spill on yourself..

Step 3     Measure you solid oils, (coconut oil, shortening, palm oil, shea butter, etc.) and melt in stainless steel pan over low heat.  Remove from heat when barely melted.

Step 4     Measure liquid oils, (olive, sweet almond, castor, apricot kernal, etc. ) and mix with melted solid oils.

Step 5     Allow all oils and sodium hydroxide (lye) solution to reach the same (100 degrees) temperature.

Step 6     Mix the lye solution into the oils.  Stir with stainless steel wisk or stick blender until soap reaches trace, (trace is when the soap becomes a pudding like consistency)  You will know that it has traced when a drizzle over the surface will set on top of the soap and not sink down inside.  Add any additives ( fragrance, herbs, etc.)

Step 7     Pour soap into a prepared mold ( anything will do, I have used pvc, a new kitty litter box, disposable rubbermade containers, soap molds, wooden molds).  If you use a plastic type mold make sure you spray it with Pam. If you use wood make sure you line it with waxed paper, a white garbage bag, or butcher paper.

Step 8     Place a cover over the soap and insulate with a warm blanket. If you use wood it usually does not need to be insulated.

Step 9     You can unmold in 24 hours.

Step 10    Cut into bars and allow to cure for 4-6 weeks.

Step 11    Enjoy great natural soap that you made yourself.

High Grade Sodium Hydroxide Lye Micro Beads, 2 Lbs. (Buy 5 get $15 off)
GARDEN BUG SOAP BARS Animal Soap Mold

LARGE LOAF Miscellaneous Candy Mold Chocolate

How to Make Laundry Soap

   Making laundry soap is something I have always wanted to try. Making your our own laundry soap saves me money and doesn't have all those bad chemicals that are in the commercial detergents.

    I figured that laundry soap doesn't need any great oils or moisturizing properties so I chose to just use something cheap. Crisco is cheap.  I used generic Crisco to make it even cheaper. Just make sure that you get all-vegetable.


Laundry Soap Recipe
48 oz of Crisco
12 oz water
6oz lye
fragrance of your choice

   I mixed this  recipe up using basic soapmaking procedure and used 2oz of Clean Linen Fragrance to make it smell good.  Poured it in a mold and let it solidify.  You can use laundry soap as soon as it is hard because it doesn't need to cure. Just be sure not to use it on your skin and wear gloves when you grate it.  I prefer to wait until it gets a bit harder to grate it up.
Cut this into approximately 8 bars.

Grate 1 bar and place in saucepan.
Cover with 5 cups of water
Heat gently, without too much stirring, until completely melted
Add 1 cup Borax and 1 cup Washing Soda
Place in large bucket or container and add 2 gallons of water , stir
Pour into containers, old laundry soap containers, or juice containers.
This will thicken as it stands, but will also separate.  You will need to shake before pouring.
Use 1/2- 1 cup per load.  Works well in HE machines too.

UPDATE- I have started doing this with half the water. It makes it more concentrated, and in my opinion easier to use. I use half the amount 1/4 - 1/2 cup in my laundry. If it looks separated after it cools you can use a stick blender to kind of blend it back together.

This soap cost me  .53/bar

I purchased my Borax at Alice.com for $4.29 that is only .06/oz. .  4oz is   $0.24



I also purchased my Washing Soda at Alice.com for $2.99, that is only $.05/oz.  4oz is $0.20



That is a total of $0.97 for approximately  64 loads of laundry
With 5 kids we do about 3 loads a day.   A batch of soap will last about 21 days.  My regular laundry detergent cost $6.35 for 32 loads.  That is $12.70 every 21 days.  A savings of $11.73.  Over the course of a year that is $203.87.  Amazing!

By popular demand I now sell the soap bars, shredded soap, and soapmaking kits that I use to make my own laundry soap
http://avalonsoapworks.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=13

Check out Alice.com too.  They are awesome!


Saving Money at Home: How to Live Better on Less
The Unemployed Mom
Energy Savers Booklet - Tips on Saving Energy & Money at Home

Soapmaking 101-The Different Types of Handmade Soaps

The 4 basic types of soap that you can make at home:

Melt & Pour
Re-batched or Milled Soap
Cold Process
Hot Process


Melt & Pour

This type of soap is ussually bought pre-made into large blocks. It is often clear and made out of glycerine, though it can contain many other things as well.
This is ussually considered the easiest form of soapmaking because you simply melt the block down , add any scents, colors , or herbs that you choose and pour into a mold. When it is hard it can be unmolded and is ready to use. The ease of use with melt and pout allows you to make rather intricate and beautiful works of art out of your soap.

Re-Batching or Milled Soap

This is ussually a cold processed soap that is made into "noodles", melted, and remolded. This method is slightly difficult, but produces a harder bar of soap as well as a truer scent and color in the final product.

Cold-Processed

This is by far my favorite type of soapmaking. It is how I started and it just seems so simple and elegant to me.
In order to make soap with this method you must measure and mix accurately . The mixture of oils and the mixture of lye and water need to be mixed at the right temperature. At this point saponification starts to occur and the soap and oil mixture will "trace" or become pudding like. It is then molded and insulated and saponification continues to occur. In 24 hours you can ussually unmold and soon after cut into bars. This product then needs to cure for4- 6 weeks or so to complete the saponification process, become hard and no longer have any lye in the bars of soap.

Hot processed

Hot processed soap is made similarly to cold processed soap, except that it is actually cooked during the saponification process. This reduces or eliminated the need for the product to cure after mixing, however, it also seems a bit more dangerous to me. With so many little ones around my house, its really not something I want to try. If you do choose to try it Ive heard that you can use the oven to do this rather successfully.



Dont Forget to check out all of our soapmaking ingredients at www.avalonsoapworks.com
and check back here often for recipes, tips, and instructions on how to make great handmade items yourself!!