Every year I make this bar of soap for my daughter who has excema and for me with very dry skin. It is very ugly but it works. It is called the Ugly Soap. She likes lemongrass as her fragrance and I like lavender and lemon. So the house is an aromatherapy haven at the moment.
To make soap all you need is a fat, I use sweet pasture raised lard, and a liquid (water for yesterday) and lye. The scents and added oils are extras. 
For the Ugly Soap I add oatmeal, sugar and ground coffee for exfoliation. Plus olive oil and coconut oil for extra moisturising and a little lather and Vitamin E. I tried to call it the Breakfast Bar bu it was too ugly. The Ugly Soap it is. 
My soap is made in the Slow Cooker for convenience.
And I use the stick blender to stir it to Trace.
Once we achieve trace I pour it into molds lined with plastic bags, held in place with pegs. The molds are little boxes I collect throughout the year and miniature drawers. I buy almost nothing specifically for soap making – just using whatever I find or collect.
Then the sits under the covers keeping hot for 24 hours while the chemical reaction turns the lard into scented soap. Magic really.
I cut one of the completed Ugly Soaps this morning before sunrise so you could see. They will all be cut this morning while they are still a little soft. Do you see the metal apparatus on the table? This was sent to me by my sister-in-law way back when I began making soap – it is the best soap cutter, simple and clean and precise I use it for all the loaves. When cutting a round soap I use my big butchers knife. 
Once cut the soaps sit and cure somewhere cool but dry. Usually the soap needs about four weeks to complete the cure. I store the soaps in labelled shoe boxes.
Today we are going to make another three batches, this time with milk instead of water. I have not used milk before – soap making being a winter job but I have managed to keep milking until soap making this winter. So this will be interesting! The milk adds extra fat so I am not sure how my equation will work out. They make soap with goats milk and my research tells me there is no reason why cows milk will not work?
Johns soap is on the right. He likes his plain with a Eucalyptus fragrance.
My most important tip is this site. The Brambleberry Lye and Fragrance Calculator writes each recipe for me. I enter all my precisely weighed fats, set the superfatting level to five and the equation will tell me how much lye and water to add. Then another calculator tells me how much fragrance. So far using this very precise method I have not had a failure.
It is cold this morning. 4F/-15C. There is a little bit of wind too – the WNW which is the prevailing wind here in the winter.
I hope you have a lovely day.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
62 responses to “The Ugly Soap”
Great post! I just made my first soap with charcoal and French clay and it was a success 🙂 after researching and preparing for months:) eczema soap is next! Thank you! How often does your daughter use the soap and does it help?
wow – charcoal and clay that is amazing. My daughter uses this soap every time she showers and she swears that is helps keep her outbreaks to a minimum. She has a nasty type of excema that comes out in big round raised areas.. poor thing. But the ugly soap seems to help. And living OUTSIDE of New Zealand also helps. The water where she lives in Australia must help too.. c
I am so happy that it helps:) eczema is a beast 🙂 thank goodness we can make soaps without chemicals. I am preparing for my next batch. I also love the name and smile each time I think of ugly soap:)
I make Oatmeal beeswax soap, in the cold process method. I see you use a crock pot, and a hand blender. I do mine the old fashioned was after melting the beeswax, coconut oil and cocoa butter on the stove. Then I add my cold olive oil and stir well. I make sure the lye/water is a nice 110 degrees before I add it to the fat which is about the same temp by then. I add GSE for a preservative, but it’s quite expensive at the health food store.