Howdy everyone !

I hope you are doing great, long time with no updates, it seems little twists of life have kept me super busy !

Today, I am going to give you a recipe for a great, quality liquid soap, the simplest and most fragrant thing you can get. This one is allergy-free, does not contain coloring, preservatives or artificial fragrances of any kind and can be made in the quantity you’d like.

To make your own stuff, you will need :

* For the soap :
-  A high quality soap made of the purest ingredients, fragrance free. (I used “savon de Marseille”, as it was easily available to me – please, be very demanding about the quality of the product you will select for this. I used the original recipe, the one which is palm oil free, like the real Marseille soap is meant to be)
- Decorative dried vegetation, according to the scents you are going to put in your recipe, I used laurel leaves, juniper bays and lavender branches. (organic vegetation is good because it is pesticide free)
- A few drops of essential oils to mix into the hot soap preparation. (use simple oils in very small quantities – preferably oils that can come in contact with the skin. I used lavender oil because I love lavender, it has a lot of interesting properties, can come in direct contact with the skin and it is very fragrant)

* For the preparation itself :
- An apron, to protect yourself and your clothing.
- A pan large enough to contain a few liters of preparation.
- A wooden spoon and a soup-ladle.
- A few clean glass recipients, or other containers of high capacity, able to withstand high temperatures.
- A cheese grater.
- At least one or two side dishes : one for the grated soap, another one for the left-over soap from your saturated solution.
- A funnel.
- A lot of attention during the making process.

Once you are all done with the ingredients, read this section carefully as there are a few precautions to take and some information it is best to know about when preparing liquid soap.

The quantity of soap you will obtain depends on the type of soap you will use. I cannot give you exact quantities, but to give you my example, I used about 450 Gr of my Marseille soap and ended up with about 6 L of liquid soap, which is a lot !!! so, I recommend you to grate slowly as you go, or grate it all, and dissolve the soap until your preparation reaches a saturation point.
Soap gets properly dissolved at very high temperatures, on a stove, so please, attend to what you are doing, and to your preparation, this will avoid unnecessary cleaning and burns. The soap solution gets VERY hot, so please, watch where you put your hands and handle with a lot of care !!

So now, you have gathered all your ingredients and you have read the advice, good, let’s get start then !

The first step is to grate your soap, just like you would with cheese. I recommend leaving it in a side dish and add it as you go along, or if you feel adventurous, throw it all in, and remove it from the solution as it gets saturated.

In your large pan, heat your water, on a high temperature, and add your soap, slowly as the solution saturates quickly. If you have put too much in, do not worry, this is why I recommended an extra side dish : with your spoon, scoop the top of the solution which will let the excess soap floatting, you can use it later, in another batch.
You know your liquid soap is ready when the solution is saturated, the excess soap removed, and the preparation has slightly boiled and gained a very translucent color, you can add some extra water, because believe me, once it cools, it will become jelly-like and if it is too viscous, you won’t be able to get it out of your jar ! Be extra-careful, at this stage, your liquid soap is dead hot !!

With care, remove it from the stove, and put your pan on a safe area such as a kitchen sink, and using your ladle and the funnel, start filling your recipients with the boiling liquid and allow it to cool. You can, at this stage, add your decorative laurel or anything else you want to add in. You now have a basic liquid soap you can use for the dishes, in the shower, or wherever.

For the fragrant version, when you are ready to fill your recipients, add a few drops (a small amount, you are using essential oils, do not toy around !!) to your preparation, stir well and then transfer the liquid soap into the jars.

A tip I can give you is to stir well your soap preparation as you are transferring it into the jars, as the bottom will get denser then the top, this way you keep an homogenous liquid solution all the way…

Once your jars are filled, allow them to cool before closing them, this will avoid condensation in your soap. You can label your bottles/jars with the date and what they contain, and now your soap can be kept for a little while… For preparation without essential oils, it can go up to a few years, for the others, from 6 months to a year.

This soap will probably be more liquid than your regular thickened soap, but watch it as it cools : shake it once in a while, else, it will go into a jelly-like state and you won’t be able to shake it out of your bottle !

Enjoy your lovely liquid soap and create preparations that will put you in a good mood under your daily shower to start your day, yay !  :D

If you have tips, tricks you’d like to share, feel free to post !
Have a pretty recipe !

Angie