Wednesday, July 7, 2010

How to?

A few weeks ago my friend, and her kid got into some poison ivy or oak, and then last week, at the Farmers Market, I was asked if I had any Jewel weed Soap. I don't. I looked into it and Jewel weed is a weed that stops the rash and itch of poison ivy and oak and other rashie type stuff.

At work on Monday I was talking about Jewel weed with a co-worker and a patron, looking at pictures. The patron thought that she has some of that weed growing in her yard. She brought is a sample today. Same flower, same leaf and same stem. I went to her house after work and got a few bag fulls of the weed.

So now how do I get it into my soap? I looked on the Internet and while I can find some stuff out. Nobody comes right out and says do this and then do that. I think what I'm going to try is this.
Chop up the weed in my food processor and then let that soak in a small amount of olive oil. When I make soap, after I have reached trace add the infused oil to the soap. Kind of like adding essential oils for scent at the end. This is kind of like "superfatting" the soap. Not sure if I should use olive oil or some different oil.

I was thinking about infusing all four pounds of olive oil with the weed and then making soap but I think that when I add my lye/milk slurry to the oil that the lye will "eat" up the good things in the Jewel weed.

Or, blend the weed up until it is liquefied, then after trace, add it to the soap. I'm not sure which way to go. Any soap makers out there? Anybody ever infused Jewel weed before?

6 comments:

  1. Hi Krissy. here is a link for the directions to make jewelweed soap. At least how one person makes it. It is the last post on this page: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/herbal/msg0810402020102.html

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  2. I hope your new soap turns out. I love jewel weed,it has a pretty flower.

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  3. @ Linda, thanks, I saw that one, it was the most helpfull too. I made a oil infused one, which I will let set for 10 days and then I made a tea. I'm not sure how I will use the tea as I use NO water in my soap making, I use frozen goat milk.
    Hey! I could infuse the milk before I freeze it!

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  4. never heard of it. If it works, sounds like it would be a good seller. Good luck! You'll have to go wallow around in poison ivy to test it out.

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  5. Infusing the milk might work too. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out. You never know until you try I guess.

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  6. I certainly could have used some of that jewel weed last August! If you succeed in making the soap and it works, let me know. Dude got in poison ivy the other day and it would have helped then too. I'll be happy to buy some, so let me know!

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