Who we are and why do we do it?

So who are we, the ladies that run the Green Living store and do all the crazy things?

Whoo boy, you don't ask hard questions, do ya?

OK, My name is R... Morana Revel as I am known online. I am a 45 year old widow with medical issues. Having ADHD as a child, my mom got me into crafting to save her sanity. So now I am a compulsive crafter, who spends as much on crafts a year as some winos do on wine.

Part of my medical issues is allergies.  A LOT OF THEM. I am allergic to all sort of artificial colorings, artificial scents and food additives.  Funny thing?  I have never found myself allergic to an actual natural, unadulterated food. So while some cannot eat peanuts or strawberries, I cannot get into elevators with women wearing perfume, wash my clothes at a laundromat or eat brightly colored Halloween or Christmas candy.

The laundromat issue showed up as a very young child. Luckily, my elderly babysitter taught my mother to make lye soap one hog killing season and the rest is history.  I grew up on natural lye soap, whole foods and only had issues away from the farm.

I started out in nursing school and studied herbalism on the side.  When I changed majors away from nursing, I kept up the herbalism studies.

Later in life, I bought a bookstore, which I loved. I started a small yarn store inside the bookstore soon after. However, my husbands declining health and my medical issues forced me to place the bookstore for sale and shut it down. I moved my yarn store and started posting more stuff online.

So, the Green Living aspect? For me, much of that has been lifelong. Mom made cloth napkins when I was a child as well as lye soap, cloth paper towels and handkerchiefs. The cloth pads came later...much later. I was on a survival type post on Facebook reading about a large movement to move to line drying clothing. As in, start now because you will have to if the SHTF. I have never been a fan of that type of posting, the over-the-top THE END IS NEAR threat type.  I was having a fun time laughing at all the ridiculous postings.  Having grown up with line drying and quite a lot of hand washing, much of what they were saying was rudimentary skills I learned as a very young child.  The discussion moved to *GASP* toilet paper alternatives. My family being farmers, hunters and campers, this discussion was also very funny.

It was when the discussion moved to alternative menstrual products that the discussion wasn't so funny to me anymore.  While it is true that there are very few leaves in KY that haven't touched my nether regions, I didn't see anything I would feel comfortable long term with my allergies.

That was the first I had heard of cloth pads.  I searched around, found Mimi's Dreams had a few Seconds for sale and I tried those. All of a sudden my allergies started getting better and my constant kidney infections stopped.

Of course, after a year of testing and experimenting on myself, I set out to convert several friends. I started Jennifer, who had already started learning soapmaking. She had many of the same allergies as I and really enjoyed the DIY aspects of some of my ideas.

We started learning, experimenting and following bloggers on Facebook to learn more.  It has been a time of great discovery for both of us.  While I am the more experienced seamstress, most of my experience if from sewing garments. We make what we like.  So while Jennifer likes a wider, straighter pattern, I make curvy styles. We are in a small town, with a small local fabric store and limited selection.  We have issues getting a steady supply of fabric we like. We order in a lot of fabric from WAHMs.  We love being able to support the creativity of other women. And this is where the fantastic hand dyed come from.  While we would love to take credit for the lush hand dyed velours and the fun and funky knits, alas, we can not.  While we have dabbled in the dye pot for yarn and fiber, we prefer  to support others. At least for now.

We are still learning. We are not experts by no means. We are constantly trying to learn new things: canning, weaving, bath salts, cough gummy drops...LOL, we are open to trying just about anything. So cloth pads are not the strangest thing we have done.

What is hand made soap

First, a short history.

My main babysitter lived on a pig farm. Mayola was a wonderful old lady who lived in a huge old house on a small hill. She was kind and patient with me as a child.

When I was about 5 years old, she taught my mother to make traditional lye soap during the annual hog killing.

My mother made all of the household soap after that...even laundry detergent. Hers was a bucket of grayish slurry sitting beside the washer.

Once the Thompson's became to old to maintain hogs and kill their own, mom stopped most lye soap making, but she always make a batch every year or so.

It was only in college that I found out I am allergic to most "store-bought" soaps. Hence the abundance of lye soap in our house.

Ok, history lesson finished.

What is handmade soap
Handmade (non commercial) soap falls into two categories....Only two.  It is either made from scratch with lye...or a melt and pour concoction bought from someone. Melt and pour is most likely glycerine based but may contain petroleum products. It is cooped up, melted and poured into molds...and called handmade.

What is glycerine
Glycerine is a byproduct of commercial soap production.  When vegetable oils are mixed with lye, glycerine (a form of water soluble vegetable oil) is released. In commercial soap, the glycerine is recovered and sold separately as a humectant and food additive. In handmade soap, the glycerine is mixed back into the soap, creating a gentler soap.

What is lye
Lye is a base.  It is a chemical that in its pure form can cause burns, blindness and damage the lungs.  Yes, it is dangerous...In its pure form.

How is soap made
Most people do not know that fat and oils are acidic in nature.  ALL FAT AND OILS are acidic to some degree.  That is why people can drink vinegar and use it as a wash with no issues, it is only slightly more acidic than our natural PH.

Water is neutral...for the most part. It is what is contained in the water that can alter its PH level.

So making soap is nothing more than a controlled chemical reaction. That chemical reaction is known as soaponification. You take a strong base, mix it with water to slow the chemical reaction and add in enough of a acid to reach a neutral PH.

Now, the mark of a good soaper is to know that the chemical reaction takes several weeks to complete. Heat and humidity can change how fast or how slow the chemical reaction takes place.  So a freshly made soap will still be too basic to use safely and can burn the skin or eyes. So the soaper must know how much lye to add..to reach neutral 6 weeks in the future.

So making good soap takes a lot of experience. While a new soaper can use a recipe and get something usable, if something goes wrong, they will not be able to know exactly WHAT went wrong. You either have to know chemistry well or have a good amount of pure experience to troubleshoot.

Add in the problems that every single addition of oil, color or scent can alter the chemical reaction, there are a lot of things that can go wrong.

People's reaction to the WORD lye
Ok, everyone who knows me knows I have a serious issue with stupid people.

People who refuse to try lye soap because of the WORD lye...are ignorant. There is no other explanation. They will have issues with the word LYE but not the word SOAPINIFIED! Really, ignorance at its finest.

If someone places SOAPINIFIED on a soap label, it simply means the oils were mixed with lye for the chemical reaction called soaponification.

Soap making as an art
A supervisor at work told me his grandmother's lye soap was so strong "it could take the paint off a Buick". Therefore, he would never try lye soap.

I asked him if his grandmother could bake good biscuits. He said her biscuits could float across the table. I told him my mother could not make biscuits, only door stops and hockey pucks, but she could make fantastic lye soap.

He didn't understand the simile.

The truth is, soap making is much like cooking.  Just because you have a recipe, doesn't mean you can cook. Mom had a recipe, she even took a lesson from my aunt Frankie, but she could never make a decent biscuit. Now, mom could bake bread, she could make venison stew; overall, she was a fantastic cook.  But she failed abysmally at making biscuits.

Some people fail at making lye soap.  That is the only way to explain it. My supervisor's grandmother failed at it, my mother did not.

So when you are talking about lye soap, remember these lessons.  There is a lot involved. Chemistry, recipes and simply that something extra.  Call it experience, call it prescience if you have to. But don't judge it all by one standard.