Sunday, March 30, 2008

Laundry Soap

I was talking to my husband today and got thinking about laundry soap. I had heard of using handmade soap for clothes, but hadn't thought too much about it. Now I am seriously considering it. Only thing is, people say that lard is the best solid oil to use for it's cleaning ability. Now, that may be so but I neither consume nor utilize pork on any level where I can help it. I will absolutely not buy lard to make anything with. So, with that said, palm oil is largely considered veggie tallow so I'll be using that, along with washing powder, and a little borax. I want to offer it in bars for use as like a immediate stain remover, and a powder for the washing machine. It is soap after all and soap tends to cause a buildup of the oils on things around it. I hear that it can leave a washing machine with oil buildup over time. To resolve this issue, I believe the best thing is to create a soap that is not superfatted. This would make it lye-heavy but then again it isn't to be used on the skin so it all works out.

I wonder if my customers would like to see a more natural alternative to regular detergent? It might catch on big if I can figure a way to make it both affordable and highly effective. To get people to switch, my product would have to measure up in most every way to the leading brands on the market. I don't think that will be such a big problem though.


I have finally found a good way to display gift sets....small ones at least. I have these cool little boxes that are rather small, but I can fit a good amount of product in them for a good price. I am really proud of my own creativity, because I was stumped for a bit. I didn't want to go out and start spending a whole bunch of money on packaging. I knew I had the raw materials to get a good looking set out of the stuff I already had if I only put my mind to it. I think I can have it ready to present in my shop tomorrow if I can get off my lazy bum and make the things I need. I need to create the scrubs in scents matching the soap I make. You would have thought it was a no-brainer, but trust me to have not done it until now. How can you make a really cool set of things and they neither match nor truly correspond to one another? You can't. Otherwise it just looks like you threw a bunch of stuff together and expect somebody to just buy it.


Well until next time........

2 comments:

Rebecca D. Dillon said...

You can use vegetable lard. ie. Crisco It's not the same thing as tallow.

earthtonesbath said...

thanks soapdeli. I was thinking of running a few test batches just to see how it works out. It'll be a while before I perfect it and get it ready to sell.