It smells like Lye Soap, but not meat greases. I save all of the following greases and oils: Bacon Grease Hamburger drippings from my grill pan Ground Beef grease Shortening and/or oils used for frying meats. Oils used for any kind of fast frying (donuts, french fries, etc). Meat greases rendered from roasts (beef, pork, etc) and so forth. I don't fry very often, but I still save the oils and grease. It adds up faster than you might think! NEVER dump grease and oils down drains. Not only does this stop up sewer lines and septic systems, but it is a major cost to the public in city sewage systems repairs and maintenance and sewage processing plants. It pollutes the land and water systems...kills fish and other wildlife, creates algae in water ways, and more. Awful stuff. The chemical action in the soap making process removes the smelly odors of meat greases. Make sure you strain it well to remove all the bits and pieces. I just use my kitchen sieve. The soap will not LOOK like commercial stuff. Those are mostly detergents. This soap is wonderful. Leaves your skin soft. Gentle on clothes. The two commercial soaps that I know that are REAL SOAP are Castile and Ivory (or Ivory used to be real soap anyway). For JUST hand soap, you can add a little glycerin (found at all RX drug store counters), and omit the Kerosene. OPT. - Kerosene is not necessary for the recipe to work, but it makes the laundry soap better. Boosts the cleaning power. As mentioned above, you can add coconut oil (and/or other fancy oils) to make it more sudsy and feel softer. But, the purpose of this topic is HOW TO USE old MEAT GREASE that you should not put in your compost. There are all kinds of soap recipes on the internet. I've tried a few. The thing I object to in these NEW recipes is the cost and waste. Those fancy oils are EXPENSIVE. Cheaper to buy commercial soap and be done with it. Hope this explains my purpose in posting this topic: ***Recycling old meat grease rather than throwing it into the garbage that will go into land fills*** We can greatly reduce the amount of trash and garbage that goes into land fills (millions of tons of garbage dumped on the land and in the ocean )just in America) just by practicing the three "R's" of waste management for good conservation - REDUCE -> REUSE -> RECYCLE -> Don't waste food! Use those leftovers and compost your kitchen garbage. Many household items that most Americans tend to just toss in the garbage daily can be REDUCED, REUSED, and RECYCLED, including clothing, buttons, zippers, snaps, hook and eyes, and other items just in our households alone. Good conservation practices not only saves the Earth by preventing pollution and conserves our natural resources, but it will save each of us MONEY, not only collectively as a society, but in each household! There is an old Mormon saying: "A woman can throw it out the window with a teaspoon faster than a man can pitch it in the front door with a shovel." - Brigham Young, 1860. This is so true. ~Annie

I started with MP soap many years ago & added everything-- fresh fruit, ground spices, you name it-- & never had a problem. Grapefruit seed extract & Rosemary extract will inhibit rancidity in added oils; potassium sorbate will inhibit some rot in water-based materials. If you are worried about your products, tho', make a small batch & let them "rot". I find a sunny window in a humid bathroom will tell me lots in just a few weeks... I started CP soap WITH MY CHILDREN when they were in kindergarten & never had a problem, but they were not allowed to 1) mix the lye or 2) pour the lye into the soap. They WERE allowed to stir the soap, dump in the oatmeal, etc. but usually got bored & wandered off before we even got that far... We hated the goggles, but loved the long yellow gloves (which you can find in pink, too & with rings, even.) However all that said, if I am teaching soap, I INSIST that the person/group have a babysitter there for all kids under 12 because once CP soaping has started, you cannot stop it & don't want your attention diverted from it. Plus, we Moms have to have some time to ourselves, you know... I remember getting up really really really early in the a.m. to make a batch before anyone bothered me....

"I want to make a lot of soap this spring and summer. I've been thinking about doing this since I moved onto farm land " Go slow at first when making soap, they're many mistakes that can be made and some experimentation should be done first. After the first recipe has been made it will be at least 1 month until you get a good idea of what you have accomplished. I know you'll feel like an expecting parent soon after you make your first batch. "I have some nice ingrediants growing on my property,..." Each ingredient should and take some investigation to do it right; methods, amounts etc.. "I understand that different ingrediants call for different amounts of lye, but is there a general ratio known of how much lye is used for how much final bar soap product? If I were to order an excess, are sealing pale containers capable of storing a bulk of lye for a long time? Is airtight good enough to store it well?" The ingredients that you mention that you might grow on your farm do not require any lye, only fats and oils "How would I go about getting essences of things into bars of soap. Such as pine scent, or the patchuli or chamomile and other flowers... Would a chamomile-scented soap be acheived by incorporating a chamomile-tincture into the soap recipe somehow?" Tinctures, I believe are alcohol based and wont play nice with your soap making. I have added chamomile into soap by steeping the chamomile in warmed olive oil for 4 hours, then using the olive oil (straing out the leaves), in the recipe. This will give you the benefits ofcamomile as well as the colour(yep, I'm Canadian):) What is the simplest soap I can make for my first trial? ... ie can I use just lye, water, and corn oil for my first run at it? I would use olive oil, the Pomice kind, it's cheap and you don't have to use the high quality stuff. And, it makes a pretty good simple soap; you may even come back to this soap recipe years down the road and some people like it even non-scented Good luck!

I am looking for a recipe for a shaving soap made from M&P bas that does not call for any liquid soap to be added. Does anyone know of any? Thanks, Dianne