News — science

Ok, confession time given that a client just sent me a picture of my soap, decorated and looking dangerously edible. I messed around quite a while a few years ago with making soap from biodiesel byproducts. (Mostly glycerine is left over when you make biodiesel). It worked really well as soap, but was hard to sell; mostly because the texture always stayed soft. So I mucked around with making liquid biodiesel soap as well. (I can say if you do this, it's one of the best grease-stripping agents on the planet, seriously. Just hard to ship or transport.) Because of...

Here's a science Monday factoid for you: Lilac essential oil. Does it exist? Answer: not really. It doesn't respond well to steam distillation, and the yield is so tiny that REAL lilac essential oil would cost a few thousand dollars per ounce IF you can find it which mostly you can't. The good news is that synthetics have become increasingly more sophisticated over time, even in the time I've been making and selling soap. I have sniffed my way through probably a hundred different lilac fragrance oils, and have happily settled in with one that smells like my mom's yard...

Honey is a fun ingredient for soap, and I use it a LOT.   Here's why: Honey is both a humectant and antibiotic. It's still used in some places as a wound dressing-- go ahead and google. It's fascinating stuff. But when I add honey to soap, it's because I'm looking for a couple of effects specifically. The humectancy, and the fact that it causes handmade soap to "mellow" and the scents become more true-to-plant.   Watching soap gel up and get to "trace"--the stage where if you lift out the mixer, it leaves traces on the top of the soap,...