The most wonderful time of the year…

Fall and winter are my most favorite times of the year. I love the cool weather, and to be honest I cannot tell you which season I like the most…

Autumn brings along the changing of the foliage…which is lovely I must say, and gives me a chance to take numerous photos. Winter is always magical with a nice dusting or whole heap of snow. It’s makes a perfect excuse for my daughter and I to gather around out wood stove with a board game, good book, or something crafty while we create Smores, or I prepare food cooked on our wood stove.

Autumn is also a time for planting of fall crops, Hallows End (within World of Warcraft), and it’s when I do most of my soapmaking. This fall (since I’m working a few hours weekly out of the home) I most likely won’t do my fall soapmaking until next month. I use a variety of ingredients in soapmaking, but standard items are essential oils, and a variety of herbs/flowers that I grow in our yard.  Naturally I have people that I’ll be gifting with handmade soap.

If you haven’t used handmade soap, you really should. In many cases it’s much gentler than the soap you’d purchase from a store, and it tends to do a much better job of conditioning and keeping your skin soft too. Lye, a caustic chemical that is used in most soapmaking, is made harmless through a bit of chemistry. Did you know you can neutralize a lye spill by applying vinegar to the affected area.  I must say I get a chuckle at some of the anti-acrylic yarn rants that center around “I don’t use man-made yarns because they use caustic chemicals”. I’m guessing some of the same ones going on that tangent use the traditional soaps, laundry detergents that use those ‘caustic chemicals.

Naturally I’ll be gifting a few people with my homemade soap, including a few of my blog pals like Nicole (Happy Birthday Nicole!) and of course Curls & Q.