making soap

I was home with my mom a few weekends ago, and we spent 2 days making soap from scratch to use as part of the favors for my wedding. My mom is pretty awesome. she always takes on too much because she wants to help everyone, which is an admirable trait. so really, she made this soap, and i just helped her :) here are some of the scents you can use. for the first batch we choose to do a rose scented soap and the second a blood-orange scent (reminds me of Dexter)

this process takes a lot of measuring, melting, and mixing. then you have to get the ingredients to the correct temperature, and then mix some more. and if you remember edward norton getting his hand burned in fight club, that could have really happened, but luckily didn't.

so for the first batch, we put real dried lavender pieces, and the second, we put rose petals from a bouquet from my friend's wedding last summer..

after mixing everything together, it then gets stored in a wooden crate that has to been covered and wrapped up to keep at the same temperature. here is what it looks like after immediately being poured all together.

then, there is a lot of waiting. its takes 24 hours to solidify, and still a month before its ready to be cut and used. here is what the lavender one looked like after 24 hours