As some of you know, amongst my many other "kitchen chemistry" projects, I enjoy the occasional foray into soap making. Following on from previous threads, I have been toying for a while with producing a perfect soap for Bushcraft purposes.
What does that mean? Well, it must serve a variety of purposes, be ethically produced (and since I'll be making it, that means ethical ingredients), contain no harmful products etc.
I have played with a number of combinations and my current thoughts are running as folows
Ingredients:
My current experiments are vegetable based since some are uncomfortable with animal products. I also always avoid palm oil which, as an ingredient, produces very fine soap. However palm oil is produced in massive monoculture plantations and is, in my view, one of those avoidable monoculture crops that negatively impacts biodiversity.
I am experimenting with various proportions of vegetable materials therefore including basic vegetable suet, olive oil, corn oil, coconut oil (which produces a soap every bit as good as plam oil in my view) etc.
I am looking to produce a soap which is suitable for use as a shampoo bar, soap and, if desired, clothes washing. I would like to incorporate some additional materials to provide an antiseptic property and, if possible, some mild insect repellant properties.
I am currently working on a hard vegetable soap, quick to lather that contains citronella and teatree essential oils and some of my own dried organic herbs to give a little extra zest and a mildly "scrubby" texture. This is suitable for hair, body or laundry use. Being entirely vegetable based it would be very low impact enviromentally (in use and in production)
I know its an odd topic, but what would make a perfect bushcraft soap for you?
Red
What does that mean? Well, it must serve a variety of purposes, be ethically produced (and since I'll be making it, that means ethical ingredients), contain no harmful products etc.
I have played with a number of combinations and my current thoughts are running as folows
Ingredients:
My current experiments are vegetable based since some are uncomfortable with animal products. I also always avoid palm oil which, as an ingredient, produces very fine soap. However palm oil is produced in massive monoculture plantations and is, in my view, one of those avoidable monoculture crops that negatively impacts biodiversity.
I am experimenting with various proportions of vegetable materials therefore including basic vegetable suet, olive oil, corn oil, coconut oil (which produces a soap every bit as good as plam oil in my view) etc.
I am looking to produce a soap which is suitable for use as a shampoo bar, soap and, if desired, clothes washing. I would like to incorporate some additional materials to provide an antiseptic property and, if possible, some mild insect repellant properties.
I am currently working on a hard vegetable soap, quick to lather that contains citronella and teatree essential oils and some of my own dried organic herbs to give a little extra zest and a mildly "scrubby" texture. This is suitable for hair, body or laundry use. Being entirely vegetable based it would be very low impact enviromentally (in use and in production)
I know its an odd topic, but what would make a perfect bushcraft soap for you?
Red