Getting an idea!

Howdy!

I'd like to introduce myself, and give you an idea of what set me off on this grand adventure.

My name is Debbie, and I live in the idyllic South West of Western Australia. I am a mother of three grown offspring and wife to the most wonderful man in all the known universe. :) Yes I know I'm lucky.

I was very bored, recovering from a fairly large operation midway through 2014, and unable to move far from my lounge chair, when I started reading anything I could get my hands on. I happened across an article about making your own soap. Strange. I thought it was just something you bought with your weekly groceries every so often. When needed. (spare a thought for my ignorant previous self)

I did occasionally wonder how cavemen cared for their dry flaky skin, but just assumed that they didn't live long enough to really care.

My skin has always been dry and flaky, and being a busy mother and wife, running off to various jobs on the side I hadn't really taken a lot of extra care of it. Except summer, when I wore shorts and would become quite embarrassed about the scales (yes, they did look a lot like that!) down the front of my legs, and back of my arms, especially at the elbows. So dry. But a little bit of moisturiser every so often took the edge off them.

So back to this article. I started researching handmade soap, traditional soap, glycerin soap, in fact anything I could find. I've been on facebook for a year or so, but never even though about joining groups until I did a search, and low and behold, found soapmaking groups.

It was like my whole world opened up before me!  Wonders. (this is the point at which you roll your eyes, my kids do!) I came across a heap of articles about the safety aspect of working with lye, or caustic soda. It sounded very dangerous. There is of course plenty of proof of that fact. Many many people with serious burns. (pause for effect...) However it turns out that with enough precautions and safety equipment you can safely work with lye, and oil to make gorgeous, luxurious, glycerin filled handmade pretty soap!

And it was the beginning of my story!

Stay tuned for more.