Gardener, heal thyself.

I am here today to promise the Universe (and therefore myself) that this is the last blog post I will write until I have finished and turned in the paper about this blog that I must submit in order to graduate.  Priorities, Maggie, priorities! 



However, with that said...since we can't be out in the garden right now, playing with herbs--do you want to play in the kitchen with herbs instead?  Even better, do you want to play with healing herbs and skip the culinary stuff we already know for now? 



Calendula: still blooming in late December

Yes?  Great!  

As you know, in the middle of my frenzied just-before-Christmas whir of potionmaking, I did make a batch of herbal salve, but I am not entirely sure that I achieved the consistency in the final product that I had envisioned.  To be honest, there were beeswax and olive oil flying hither and yon all over my kitchen in various proportions, and eventually I was just throwing chunks of wax in jars without any coherent attempt at measurement.

I tell you this for two reasons. 

1.  You may have been a recipient of the salve and wonder what the heck I was thinking with the goopy stuff in the jar.  I wasn't thinking; I just owe you another chunk of beeswax.

2.  A salve of olive oil and beeswax is actually whatever you want it to be, and that includes the consistency.  Which means that there is a big range in the ratios of oil to wax that are all appropriate, and as potionmaker, you get to decide which you like best.   There is a simple way to do this, and if I hadn't been in such a flurry of multi-tasking before the holidays, I would have taken the time to do so.  More on that ahead.

[This may be obvious, but just in case you are not accustomed to thinking about recipes in terms of ratios, here is how to measure your ingredients this way:  for a ratio of oil to beeswax that is 3:1 (three-to-one), you want three parts oil to one part beeswax (in the sentence, oil is mentioned first and beeswax second, so oil corresponds to the 3 and beeswax to the 1).  You can decide that any given amount is one "part"--if you decide that 1/4 cup is one "part," you would use 3/4 cup of oil and 1/4 cup of beeswax and end up with a total of one cup in a 3:1 ratio of oil to wax.]
 OK.  Here is the recipe:

Herbal Healing Salve

Ingredients:


Olive oil
Beeswax
Dried herbs
Essential oil for scent (optional)

First, infuse the oil with herbs:


Method #1


The best way to infuse an oil takes time and sunlight: place the herbs in a lidded glass container and cover them with the oil, making sure they are entirely submerged, then cover the jar and put it in a sunny, warm place for 2 weeks. Be smart about this:  make sure everything is scrupulously clean and then dried thoroughly to avoid growing a science experiment along with your infusion.  Strain the herbs from the oil with a piece of cheesecloth, old stockings, coffee filter or similar, according to directions in Method #2 below. Put new herbs in the jar, cover with the infused oil, and repeat the process for another 2 weeks. Strain and store in a cool, dark place.


Method #2

Take a canning jar or other heat-resistant glass container and fill it ¾ full with the healing herbs of your choice. Pour enough olive oil over the herbs to cover them by an inch or so. Put the jar in a pan of water on the stove and heat very slowly over low heat. (Or, heat the oil and herbs in your crockpot, or use a double boiler on the stove.) Stir gently every so often. You want to extract the good stuff from the herbs without browning them or deep-frying them in the oil, or letting the oil boil—lower heat and longer infusing is the goal. Shoot for an hour of infusing, and feel free to go longer.


Strain the oil: take a mesh strainer and line it with cheesecloth or a thin fabric like muslin. Strain the oil. It may take a while to drain through the fabric. Once most of the oil has drained through, gather up the cloth with the herbs inside and wring the last of the herbal oil out.


Making the Ointment/Salve/Balm:


The rest is simple. For every cup of herbal oil, use roughly ¼ cup of beeswax. If you grate or chop the beeswax, it melts more quickly. Add the beeswax to the herbal oil and heat slowly to melt the wax. Stir well, but gently. If you’d like, stir in a few drops of essential oil, avoiding anything that might be too harsh for the skin like peppermint or clove. (Lavender or rose essential oils are always good for skin products. Citrus scents, while yummy, dissipate quickly.)


Here is the time to check the consistency of the salve: dribble a little on a saucer and put it in the freezer for a few minutes. If it cools and is too hard, add more oil to the original and test again. If it is too soft or goopy, melt more beeswax into it. The ratio of oil to beeswax can range from 3:1 to 8:1 depending on your preference.


Once you have the desired consistency, pour the warm salve into the containers in which you wish to keep it. Stored in a cool, dark place, the salve can last for up to a year. If you use any fresh herbs when infusing the oil, wilt them to remove as much moisture as possible before adding them to the oil.


Note on ingredients:


Olive oil is a good oil to use for cosmetic and healing purposes. You can use either regular or extra-virgin olive oil (I buy the regular stuff in bulk at Costco, since the regular oil is preferred for making soap). You can also use oils such as apricot, almond, avocado, and jojoba which are great for the skin. Grapeseed oil is good for really oily skin. The less processed, the better—“cold-pressed” is good to see on the label.


Beeswax is cheaper when you can buy larger quantities. Also, keep in mind that a big hunk of it will last quite a while. I get it at a health food store or from a farmers market, but you could also see if you can find a local beekeepers association or club and see what they say. I’ve picked it up at the big beekeeping area at the State Fair before and that was cheaper than my normal store.


The herbs I used in the salve for Christmas were: comfrey, plantain, calendula, rosebuds, rosemary, peppermint, lemon balm, lavender, red clover (listed in roughly descending order of amounts used—again, I don’t measure). The finished balm has a mild, earthy, green smell that I like, without any essential oils added. Sandalwood or rose essential oils (or a few drops of both) would be delicious too.


Other good skin-healing herbs are chickweed and chamomile. If I had to pick just a few to use, I would choose comfrey, plantain, and calendula. Calendula and comfrey should be fairly easy to find; you want calendula flowers and comfrey leaves or roots. Comfrey roots are more potent and should possibly be limited to external use only (so avoid in lip balm, for example), although in that debate, I am firmly aligned on the pro-comfrey side. Plantain is probably more difficult to buy, because it is an extremely common weed. Use the leaves--we are talking about Plantego major, not those strange green bananas at the grocery.


Important enough to mention twice: if you re-use glass jars and containers (jelly jars are nice, or small mustard jars, baby food jars, etc.) make sure to remove any paper or cardboard liners in the lids. If you leave those in place, bacteria will get between the lid and the liner, and you’ll end up with mold. Similarly, make sure the jars are entirely clean and DRY before you fill them with salve—moisture will cause problems.

Bonus: save a bit of your infused oil for a wonderful, healing lip balm.
This is by far my new favorite creation at the ol’ Hanna-Goeglein camp. We have one small container in our house, and so far, I am hording it for myself.


Peppermint-Honey Healing Lip Balm:
Take two tablespoons of oil in a heat-proof glass container, set the jar in a saucepan with a few inches of water in it. Add two teaspoons of beeswax. (If you preferred to weigh your ingredients, use 30 grams of oil and 7.5 grams of beeswax or a ratio of 3:1 or 4:1.) Heat slowly on low heat until the beeswax is melted. Remove from heat. Add a dollop of raw honey if desired and stir well. Stir in a few drops of peppermint essential oil (or other varieties, but be careful not to use too much). Pour into small tubs, let cool, and blissfully slather on your lips, cuticles, cuts, scratches, etc. You can try to re-use old lip balm tube containers that have been cleaned very gently (wipe out and then disinfect with vinegar; dishwasher and even hot soapy water may damage them).

On Second Thought: a Thanksgiving Post

Dear Lord.  How is it more than a month since my last post?  Argh.  Way waaaaay more.

OK.  So, it's not that I haven't started posts. 

There was one draft that I began back in early November, and all that I will say about it is that

"Time management."

was the first sentence (fragment).

I am not qualified to expound upon that subject...obviously.  Off to the virtual trash can it goes.

The second (circa a predictable 11/24) started off with this:

"Gratitude is pretty in these days.  So is talking about being 'blessed.'  Both of those words tend to make me feel a bit twitchy to be honest, but that is a symptom of their popularity and overuse rather than a deep-seated aversion to being genuinely thankful.  This is the second year, actually, that I've tried to write a Thanksgiving post, and my failing has nothing to do with how much gratitude I feel for the gifts I have in this life."

[...but it does signify the beginning of a long tradition in aborted gratitude posts, apparently.       *sigh*] 

*   *   *

So it is not that I've been lacking stories to tell, but rather that I am suddenly a much busier, employed person.  Then you add holiday prep/panic time and a catastrophic computer failure...and we end up...here.  With a sadly neglected blog and a few more gray hairs.  Would you like a quick update on the rest of my life?  Did I mention the sprained ankle?  The contractor who quit in the middle of a project for my new job, one that had already been delayed by three weeks--?        

--Wait.  That's not the stuff I want to share; that's just stress getting in the way again.  I want to talk about the good stuff, like my most recent bout of harvesting--yes, harvesting in the last few weeks of December.  I was on the prowl for plantain, if I could still find it growing in the yard, and also out to snip the last of the comfrey that had escaped frost damage.  Both, along with some of the calendula flowers I harvested and dried all summer, were for a healing salve that I planned to make for our home medicine chest as well as for gifts.  Jason was outside with me, and as I paced along, bent over and staring intently at the ground, I started to giggle. 

Plantain is a weed.  A prevalent and much-combatted one--in fact, my guess is that it is second only to dandelions as the weed most people could easily identify, due to their constant struggle to eradicate it from the lawn or flower beds.  And here I am, in the freezing cold with a scarf over my head like a peasant woman, combing the yard for this hated plant.  To use in a potion.  For healing.  Oh, poor Jason.  I laughed again.  How did I get to this place?  How did Jason get yoked into sharing his life with a crazy person harvesting weeds in December for Christmas gifts?

Jason was over by the chicken yard, talking to the girls, and he finally noticed me snorting to myself as I shivered and snipped comfrey leaves and asked what was so funny.  I joined him, explained, and we both laughed as we stood side by side, watching the girls beg for treats.  This is a good life.  A funny life, certainly, but a rich and satisfying one where we love each other dearly despite our glaring mental health issues, and where we can stand outside in the cold together, surveying our yard, chickens, garden, weeds with pride and contentment.  Where food and beauty and even medicine can be found just beyond the kitchen door, even in December when summer's gone and the living ain't easy for man nor beast nor fat, spoiled hen.  We have so much--so much of what counts.  I may not be capable of finishing a Thanksgiving post, but I am oh, so thankful.

When I started this blog, one reason was to write it as a project for school--to record my experiments in urban sustainability, and to keep a descriptive commentary going that others could use for their own purposes (hopefully as a guide for their own adventures and not just to laugh at my ridiculous musings!)   Well, the time has come to summarize this blogging experience in a paper, and I am already feeling nostalgic. 

The simple days of working on house-projects, caring for the girls and the garden, teaching four-year-olds about seeds, soil, and Nature, the long winter evenings snuggled on the couch with knitting needles whipping around industriously--now I have to find time for these luxuries on an increasingly crowded calendar.  Herein lies the basic dilemma of the two-income home:  who makes the home while both people are at work?  I don't know what the future of this blog is, or how frequently I will be able to write posts.  Now, more than ever, I realize the hard, cold value of time and labor; no matter how much I may want to reduce our consumption by making things ourselves, the truth is that there are only so many hours in a day.  How and where will I draw these lines? 

While I don't have these answers, I do have one:  I will still be posting here.  I have grown to love this strange blog world, an odd hybrid between a diary and pulpit where I am required to ponder life and Nature and lessons-learned and then offer up my ponderings under the bloggish-assumption that these thoughts are worth recording and sharing with you. 

Of course, the bottom line is that the girls have a responsibility to their public, and I am the only one who can type!

 

Happy New Year to all of you!  Thanks for reading!

Clean livin' and the lord

Guess what?

Soap's ready to use!  

It's been curing for a month in the spare bedroom.  I've visited it often.

And use it we have been--now that those long four weeks are finally over!  It is really nice stuff...very gentle and more slippery than lathery, which is what we are used to anyway since we've been using health-food-store soaps for the last few years.  It cleans well and hasn't disintegrated in our shower (but isn't kept in the trajectory of the showerhead, either, let's be honest.)  It is mild, and I like using it for my face;  I hope that it will prove helpful for Jason's eczema with continued use.

OK, here's the deal:  do you know how satisfying it is to have made something entirely new--to have the chemical reaction work correctly the first time?  I think household alchemy is pretty dang fun, personally.  I will be making soap again...soon.  I keep giving it away, and that month-long waiting period is a bummer.

I am sad to say that the essential-oil fragrance has apparently been sacrificed to the curing period in the open air.  I would like to test the pH of the bars next time to see how long it actually takes them to cure, rather than just going with the average time, which might help.  I would also like to try again with essential oils, but use strong scents like rosemary and mint.  Oh, or clove and cinnamon.  Mmm.  


I was thinking the other day that if there is one area of this homesteading experiment that I feel I have truly explored, it is the home- and human-cleaning product realms.  For most of the last year I have made, rather than bought, the following:

• shampoo
• conditioner 
• hair gel
• body lotion
• herbal salve for wounds
• face lotion
• bathroom spray cleaner
• soft scrub
• toilet cleaner
• kitchen spray/general cleaner
• floor cleaner    

More recently, I've been trying my hand at making
-soap
-laundry detergent
-bug spray
-and bay rum.  

This is such a fun genre to dabble in, and I wish that I could be privately funded to focus on and play with herbs and potion-making all the day long.  I have books on herbs that I bought while in high school, so this is no passing fancy.  [Oh, and I would go to herbalist school in a heartbeat.  I love the rich history that women have with herbs and healing--just as I love the anarchy inherent to the fact that some of the most useful herbs are what we now call weeds.]  

Ultimately, the colors and scents and gathering out in the fresh air and sunshine are a blissful way to spend your day.  I have the most wonderful mason jar full of sun-dried calendula flowers that represents hours of picking, preparing, and drying beautiful flower-heads on sunny days throughout the summer.  How can they be anything but a force for health and happiness?


I also should point out that our house and persons are as clean as they were when we were buying all of the commercial cleaning stuff.   (Notice how cleverly I worded that.  Ha!  Some of you uber-housekeepers would faint, but I think we do OK.)  If anything, I feel like my hair and skin have benefited from this simplistic routine.  I absolutely love not having a label to bother reading--and if you are concerned about the chemical soup we live in like I am, then you are probably inclined to squint at label gobble-de-gook as well.  It is very freeing to have made what you are using and know the ingredients and their quality inherently.  It is a bit of a challenge to try to recreate for myself all that we would otherwise buy, and I am sure that I will eventually need to start weighing what is worth the time-invested and what would better to buy ready-made.  For right now, though, I am having fun.


If you are interested in trying some or any of these cleanliness-creations yourself, there are  many great resources out there with recipes, tips, and suggestions.  My favorites include:

• Rosemary Gladstar's Recipes for Vibrant Health:  175 Teas, Tonics, Oils, Salves, Tinctures, and Other Natural Remedies for the Entire Family
• Better Basics for the Home:  Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living, by Annie Berthold-Bond
• The Wild and Weedy Apothecary:  an A to Z Book of Herbal Concoctions, Recipes, Remedies, Practical Know-How & Food for the Soul, by Doreen Shababy
• The Naturally Clean Home:  150 Super-Easy Herbal Formulas for Green Cleaning, by Karyn Siegel-Maier

  In general, let me say that I use a lot of the following, some of which is available at any grocery or drugstore  (but may be better sourced at a health food store):  

distilled white vinegar, organic apple cider vinegar, olive oil, extra-virgin olive oil, coconut oil, pure aloe vera, witch hazel, vegetable glycerin, beeswax, baking soda, washing soda, castile soap, borax, lye, fresh or dried herbs and essential oils. 

--and that just about wraps up my shopping list.  From hence, all cleanliness cometh.

Well, with the exception of dishwashing liquid, which continues to elude me.  Tricky liquid soap.   Ah, well. 

Monsoon season

I can't accurately describe, or apparently, capture on camera, the performance art of green going on outside my windows these days, thanks no doubt to the endless, drenched gray skies.  If the light weren't so perfect and clear at times, I would probably be gloomily moping around the house, but as it is, I find myself drawn to the door and eventually outside to projects made ridiculous by the dripping weather.  This morning, my neon grass defies verbal description:

 And then there are the flowers--all the blossoms so heavy with rain today:

Geranium...

...poppies...

...columbine...

(and again, can't help it--what a sweet face.)

Even last fall's collard greens get in on the action.

Spring has arrived in force, and I like to take the camera and greet the early ones popping up who blaze the trail for summer. 

When we bought our house almost two years ago, we inherited some perennials in the front that had been a bit neglected and were beginning to unravel into wild tangles of black-eyed-susans (not so bad) and a firmly matted mass of ivy, vinca, and euonymous--three of the four horsemen, in my humble opinion.  [I tend to glare at them when we run into each other at nurseries misguided enough to sell the evil things.  You ever wonder how you appear to other people?  Yeah, let me tell you.  At least you don't make faces at groundcover plants.]

Anyway.  After some digging, seed starting, weeding, planting and deep mulching, the black-eyed susans are under (a bit more) control, we now have a rain garden that relieves the two downspouts from our stoop, the big lovely pine that shelters us to the NW is no longer strangled by ivy, and I have the beginnings of a nice herb & native plant garden tucked in throughout the perennials.





Bought myself presents at a few nurseries yesterday and now have some delightfully fragrant planting to do:  peppermint, chocolate mint, variegated nasturtiums, valerian, eucalyptus, lemon balm, bronze fennel, and rue.  I mean, come on--don't you want to crush some of those leaves in your fingers?  This is one of my decadent extravagances in the spring each year--a treat of splurging on herbs and flowers.  I may lose the battle with weeds in the worst of the heat, but I am a consummate gardener in the spring.

Smells the best when it rains--no wonder I came home with so many.

The rest of the yard is busy with all sorts of flirtation and nest building.  Jason has placed a few birdhouses around the place, and now there is a hard-working and territorial wren standing sentinel in our Japanese maple, all the while tucking sticks and straw into place in the perky blue house.  Since male wrens flex their nest-building skills as part of their courtship, creating several for their lady-loves to examine and approve, I can only hope that this guy's little sweetheart finds the blue to her liking and they stay to raise a family....

In the running...

Not sure anyone has discovered this one yet.

 And, happily, the hummingbirds are back!  Perhaps this summer I will finally get a passable pic of one of these tiny, fearless, glimmering birds--in the meantime, the feeders are out and filled with sugar water--and little whizzing wings signal each approach if you listen...

****************

In more homesteady-news, I built a nest box yesterday for the girls' outside pen so that I can contain them there without causing an egg-laying emergency.  The last time I tried to shut them up for most of the afternoon, Betty was running back and forth in distress by the time I came out to check on them...and then made a beeline for the nest box in their coop as soon as I let her out.  Far be it from me to keep a girl from a nice dark spot to lay an egg!

SO.  This isn't the most elegant structure ever, but I had several handicaps: 

First, I realized that my stupid drill was in the back of our new truck--which is at a mechanic buddy's getting a new timing belt.  So, nails or hand-screwing.  Fabulous.

Second, my supply of wood is dwindling and no truck to go pick up more. 

Third, it has been raining for years.  Years, I tell you.  Nothing is really dry (wood) or will ever dry (caulk).

 
Of course, rather than giving up and finding something to do inside the house, I persevered...

 

The tarp may not be pretty, but everything is snug

Since the drizzle just won't seem to quit, I have been seduced this morning by baking--warm ovens, warmer smells--another batch of bagels.  I think Jason & I are both a little sick of bread (it is time to be eating crisp, light, crunchy things, after all) and bagels are a nice diversion; a Goldilocks sort of just enough bread and not too much.  This one was still warm from the oven...not to rub it in or anything :)

And now the sun is out--surely there is something else I can find to do outside!

Homemade Hygiene. Oh, yeah.

Well, I've crossed another invisible line, but I think that our relationship can handle it.

Herb garden.  Food, medicine, and cleaning?

Since you haven't written me off with the urban livestock, I feel safe venturing into another new realm:  I'm tired of buying "natural" cleaning products, shampoos, conditioners, and laundry detergents.  I'm tired of all of the label-reading and expense.  I would love to make use of my home's gray water--but I don't quite know that I trust even my green stuff, poured over my plants, to prove healthy for them and the soil.  So, I've listened to my favorite enviro advice column and decided to make these products for myself.

I'm taking all of this one step at a time, using up the remaining commercial products we have and starting herbal concoctions going that take a few weeks to brew.  For now, I have switched to making my own shampoo, conditioner, dish soap, and kitchen floor cleaner.  Whew.

OK.  I would guess that anyone still reading this is with me here, but I should still mention that--ahem-- I do not live in fear of germs and dirt.  There are bad germs, absolutely; I like a clean house & self as well as anyone.  I am a big fan of washing hands.  What I find laughable is this pervasive idea that we are going to nuke any potential germs (The Bad Guys), and this will magically grant us health and safety--as though the larger world and the microscopic one can be adequately assessed by an "us-versus-them" scenario.

Anyway, I can rant about systems thinking and out-dated patriarchal competition-and-fear-based social paradigms another time.  (!)  For now, let's talk about castile soap, baking soda, white vinegar, lemon juice, herbs and essential oils--and pursue a less heroic path towards cleanliness.

Step aside, Suave...

Wanna try this yourself?  These recipes are heavily inspired by The Naturally Clean Home and my latest favorite herbal book Wild & Weedy Apothecary, both of which contain all sorts of goodness.  I get impatient about measuring things closely, so I used the recipes as guidelines most of the time.  Here are the successes (at least so far, so good):


Simple Shampoo
1 T. baking soda dissolved in
1 c. warm water

Pour into an old shampoo bottle, close, and shake.  Apply generously to wet hair & scalp, scrubbing scalp with fingertips and making sure to thoroughly saturate your hair.  Leave on for a few minutes if you like and then rinse.

Variations:

   -Use a cup of herbal tea or an herbal infusion* in place of the water.  Good herbs to use include rosemary, sage, horsetail, nettles, and yarrow flowers.  I find this recipe lasts me through several showers--if you use tea, it might be best to refrigerate after a few days.

   -You may substitute 1 oz of castile soap for the baking soda. I've been happy with the baking soda so far...and afraid the castile soap might be too drying.

*An herbal infusion is a tea made with more plant material, brewed for a much longer time.  A very general recipe might be one ounce of dried herb (root or leaf) in one pint of boiling water, covered and steeped for eight hours or overnight.  Flowers and seeds are more delicate and require shorter steeping time.  Any herbal by Susun Weed is great for more detail.  

Conditioning Rinse
1 T. apple cider vinegar (preferably the good organic stuff) added to
1 c. warm water.

Pour into an old conditioner bottle, shake, and work your concoction through your scalp and hair, letting it soak in for a bit--I rinse it at the end of my shower. 

Variations:

   -If you would like, you can steep beneficial herbs in the vinegar for a month, shaking daily and storing in a sunny window.  I have some brewing; in the meantime, I added 4-5 drops of bergamot essential oil to my current mix--the earthy orange blends blissfully with the cider vinegar.

   -For help with dandruff and to encourage general scalp health, make an herbal vinegar out of nettle, violet leaf, red clover and peppermint, according to The Wild and Weedy Apothecary.  Or (no joke) parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.  Love it.

Love-in-a-Tangle and herbal vinegar

As strange as it seems to not be lathering a sudsy shampoo into my hair, it is actually working well--not too oily, not too frizzy or dry--I'm digging this, to be honest.  I am still using a tiny dab of leave-in conditioner and a larger dab of gel...although while researching recipes, I came across this website which has a ton of info on making the baking soda/vinegar potions, why they are effective, and recipes for homemade gel, mousse, and hairspray.  Hmmm.  I sense homemade gel in my future.

Another super homemade cleaner is the citrus-mint kitchen/bathroom floor cleaner that I used to mop my kitchen linoleum a few days ago.  Using essential oils has been reminding me how effective aromatherapy is--who knew I could enjoy mopping anything??  And, yet, the smell was blissful.

Citrus-Mint Floor Cleaner
Fill a bucket with very hot water
Add:  a few squirts (tablespoons?) of Dr Bronner's peppermint castile soap
15 drops sweet orange essential oil
8 drops lemon essential or 1/4 c. lemon juice (or both)

If you have unscented castile soap, that is how I originally found this recipe, and I am sure it would be great--however, I just used what I had--which was the minty stuff, and it smelled fantastic with the orange & lemon.

My big failure so far has been liquid dish soap.  Boo.  Unfortunately we do not have a dishwasher, and so I need something that will really hold up to loads of dishes.  In the middle of this, I've also been experimenting with creating herbal salves and lip balms--which means a lot of olive oil, shea butter and melted beeswax all over my kitchen.  This is not a great time for lackluster dish soap.  I'm about to cave and spend some more time on R & D...with a bottle of Mrs. Meyers or Seventh Generation handy.

First, I tried several tablespoons of castile soap to a sinkful of hot water, adding 4-5 drops of lemon essential oil as well.  This seemed to clean adequately but left a hazy film on everything, particularly glassware.  I tried collecting rinse water in the other side of my sink and adding several tablespoons of vinegar to get rid of the film, but that didn't seem to help.  Of course, I was also washing olive oil salve off of some of this stuff--I'm not sure anything can handle that the first time through.

Grated soap:  now available in a bottle-shaped bar!

So, I tried another recipe.  I grated a bar of Dr Bronner's unscented castile into hot water, stirred it until the soap was dissolved, and let it cool for five minutes.  Then I added lemon juice, some essential oils, and several tablespoons of vegetable glycerin.  When I deemed it cool, I stirred it to break up any areas that might have solidified, and then I used a funnel to pour it into an empty dish soap squeeze bottle.  Unfortunately, I discovered that it wasn't cool enough and now I have a squeeze bottle-shaped hunk of hard-ish soap and a little filmy, bubbly water surrounding it.

I think that to truly make a good dish soap, I may have to venture into actual soap-making.  I would love to try at some point, but not right now; I'm not entirely excited about working with lye anyway.  So, in the interim, I am resigned to buy it ready-made.

There you have it.  Homemade Hygiene, Part One.  When I run out of laundry detergent, window spray, and the various bathroom cleansers I will be back with more recipes!