Читать книгу The Real Witches’ Kitchen: Spells, recipes, oils, lotions and potions from the Witches’ Hearth - Kate West - Страница 27

The basic ingredients for soap are in fact quite caustic, so it is not only easier but also more user-friendly to rework ready-made soap. The best kind to choose is a pure, unscented castille soap, although you can use this method with other kinds of unscented soaps.

First cut up (or grate) about 4 oz (1 cup) of the soap and place in a heatproof non-metallic container.

Add about ¹/₄ cup (2 fl oz) of hot water and 1 tbsp of almond or apricot oil.

Leave until cool enough to handle and then mix in with your hands. If the soap is floating on the water you will need to add more soap.

Leave for about ten minutes, mixing occasionally, by which time the soap should be soft and mushy. If it is not, place the bowl into a saucepan of boiling water and heat gently.

When the soap, water and oil are completely blended, add any dry ingredients.

When the mixture is cool, add any essential oils. It is important that the mixture be cool as essential oils evaporate quickly in heat. Note that essential oils should be added until they overcome the original odour of the soap, so how much will depend on the type of soap and oil you use.

Blend really thoroughly and divide the mixture into four to six pieces, depending on the size of the soaps you finally require.

Now squeeze these soaps, removing as much excess water as possible, into the shape you require – balls, ovals or whatever – and tie in cheesecloth.

Hang in a warm dry place until completely hard.

The soaps can then be used or wrapped in cheesecloth and kept or given away. As an aside, ordinary soap will always last longer if you take it out of its wrapper and keep it in a warm dry place to get completely hard before use.

All the following recipes are based on the above quantity of soap. As people relate to different scents in different ways, these can be adjusted according to your own preferences. Additionally, you can adapt any of the following to a plain unscented liquid soap, but do be aware that liquid soaps are usually detergent-based and hence not really very good for the skin. Where it says ‘oil’ in the following recipes I refer to essential oil, except in the case of the coconut oil in the dry skin recipe. When using herbs or other dried ingredients, make sure that you remove the really hard woody bits to make the soap pleasant to use. If you do not like textured or ‘gritty’ soap, then substitute drops of the appropriate oils.

It is worth noting that when using soap you should always lather it in your hands and then wash the rest of yourself with the lather. It is not a good idea to rub any soap directly onto other areas of the skin as it can be too harsh and drying.