What follows is a guide to making Karoo Candys Politically Incorrect Soap the old school way.

The basic principals of soap making are the basic principals. They apply pretty much regardless of the ingredients, much like baking a bread or making pasta from scratch, there are a few rules you just dont break and an ingredient or two you cannot do without. So Down to the business To render fat you need: A sieve A large pot A trivet or a tripod with a chain A whole bunch of very heat proof containers Fat Water Wood To make soap you need: Tallow Caustic Soda (Sodium Hydroxide) Distilled or rain water A stainless steel pot A non reactive stirring utensil (I use an old very well made wire pap stirrer or a stainless steel spoon) A mould (anything really that can hold about 4 litres of hot soap without popping) A heat resistant receptacle that can hold 2.5 litres for making lye more wood The Safety equipment you need: Goggles Rubber gloves Respirator Apron A large bottle of the cheapest vinegar you can find (this neutralises caustic so if you do spill it on your skin or anywhere else it can be dealt with promptly). I also dont think that, if you can only make soap inside, that you should be cooking it Caustic fumes are extremely toxic and corrosive and they will go and settle, like a fine dust on everything in your kitchen but if you are on a farm or anywhere with lots of open space and you can cook outside give it a bash! You should also know that rendering fat does stink, there is just no point denying this. To render fat and make tallow this process takes days! Tallow is the name for rendered beef or sheep fat.

My preference is for beef fat, once rendered it has no noticeable smell while tallow made from sheep has a very slight smell but the smell doesnt stay on your skin or on the laundry once it dried I render in large quantities because it is just not economical for me otherwise. I collect and store it until I have enough and then I begin For this you need a pot, fat and water Lots of wood and a sheltered spot to make a fire. You also need a trivet or a tripod with a chain. Oh here is a tip for firelighters dry out your used tea bags, stick them in a coffee tin with a lid (or a jam jar with a lid) and dampen with paraffin. You only need one or two When making soap the old people used to fry the fat out and then wash it. They did this because kaiings (the name for the crispy fried bits) sprinkled generously with salt was a bit of a treat. You can eat kaiings, cooled just like that or with pap or on a thick slice of oven fresh bread. The old people didnt waste half as much as we do, they also worked hard enough that a little bit of fat didnt hurt Dump the fat into the pot, fill with water and let it boil The first boiling is really to melt as much of the fat out of the membranes depending from which part of the animal the fat comes, internal fat being the best. So you boil and strain with a regular sieve I strain mine into 5 litre ice tubs I get from our local ice cream parlour, set it aside in a safe place to cool. Toss the solid bits back into the pot, add more water and boil again. Continue doing this until the solid matter is a negligible mass of sinews and other bits The kaiings get shared between the wild birds and my dogs so they go into their own tub until the whole washing process is done. Now that you have rendered your fat comes the long process of washing. When you take the now solid fat from the tubs, scrape off the goo (which is really just very fine bits of gelatinous membrane) that sits between the fat and water, doing this speeds up the washing process noticeably. I usually add these scrapings to the kaiings tub. Once you have scraped all the goo off, put it back in the pot, add water and boil again This process you keep repeating until you see that the amount of gelatinous matter left on the underside of the solidified fat is negligible How old the animal was has a bearing as to how white the fat becomes. The older the animal (with cattle sheep fat is just white) the richer yellow the fat and it stays that way I have tried all the tricks I could find as to making fat whiter but in the end I have come to realise that once its clean, its clean and colour is not indicative of the purity of the fat Besides, this creamy yellow fat makes for creamy coloured soap and if you use it for citrus flavoured, calendula or honey soaps its already appropriately coloured, whats more, its a colour that you will not easily get by adding dyes either. Sometimes nature on her own is enough!

Okay, so now you are sitting with clean fat I melt all my fat without water for the last time and pour into my trusty 5 litre ice cream tubs, put them on the scale and make each one 3.8kgs This is the batch size I find easiest to work with. Store it in a cool dark place like under you are ready to make soap Make a fire. For safety sake you don the gloves, goggles, respirator and an apron and now that you look like a chemical spills cleaner upper you can start No little children or pets in the vicinity either, they way you look now will most probably scare them witless and scar them for life Melt the fat in a stainless steel pot that can hold at least three times the volume of liquid. In other words the fat and the lye together should fill the pot to about a third. Make your lye For a 3.8kg batch of fat need 500g of Caustic Soda (Sodium Hydroxide) mixed into 1.425 litres of distilled or rain water. The thing with mixing caustic and water to make lye is that you MUST add the dry to the wet and not the other way around if you make this mistake you may never recognise yourself in the mirror ever again, that is assuming you have eyes left to see with no jokes the stuff is seriously dangerous. The chemical reaction that takes place is aggressive, what ever you mix it in must be able to stand the exothermic reaction, this is the heat (energy) given off by the reaction between the caustic and water. Please dont stand with you face over the mixing container, it produces fumes I have an old bamboo chopstick that I stir the lye with, for some reason the caustic does not attack the bamboo as fatally as it did several wooden spoons. The reason I use a chopstick is that it mixes without splashing you can use any non-reactive spoon, whisk, whatever. Stir until there are no caustic crystals left. Then you need what ever goodies you want to put in to make it more fun to use I am not going tell you how much of what to add, I just add till it feels right besides making soap is a lot like making a bread, once you got the basics right, the rest is very forgiving but mother always reminded me of that thing that is said about assumptions and mothers! So now the fat is melted and off the fire, the lye is ready and waiting and you have powdered your botanicals, sorted out your essential oils, all the smellies and your mould is ready and waiting. Add more wood and make sure you have sufficient for the process. Go make tea, go to the loo, have a smoke, do what ever you need to because for the next hour or so you are not going to be able to leave this pot! Once you are satisfied that for the next hour or so you will not be disturbed by anything and everything is ready start

Put the pot back over the fire and add the lye watch out for the fumes even though you are wearing your goggles and respirator start stirring keep the fire moderate throughout, just a log or two suffices you dont want it ranging, just the equivalent of a slow simmer While cooking the soap goes through a whole range of changes First is all comes together and looks a bit like pap and you keep on stirring and then it splits and looks like melted butter on sour milk dont panic - just keep on stirring The mixture very slowly gets hotter and hotter and it really starts to boil, you keep on stirring Stirring the soap does more than just mixit drops the surface temperature just enough to keep the chemical reaction in check. Eventually the big bubbles become smaller bubbles that resemble champagne bubbles. At this point, besides the heat from your fire you also have the start of the exothermic reaction happening. The soap bubbles rise, unlike anything you have ever seen happen in a pot before and will climb out if you let it. This is also why you need such a large pot to being with The seething mass will want to become volcanic as energy is released. The only way to deal with this is to stir in constant small circles round and round the pot. If it gets a little to much, take the pot off the heat but dont stop stirring, when things have calmed down and your have regained control of the pot, put it back on the heat and dont stop stirring As more of the excess water is cooked off and the fats are mostly converted to soap the mix changes again This time is looks like oily lumpy sauce and as you carry on cooking it slowly starts to look like hot gloopy gel its done Take it off the fire! Add whatever super fatting oils to it you want mix thoroughly and let it cool to the perfect temperature to maintain the integrity of your additives. Mix really well with your now totally exhausted arms and spoon into your mould Bang the mould to get rid of air pockets and to smooth and level the soap out. Cover and leave in a safe place until its cold Next free yourself from suffocating safety gear pour yourself a long cold one, sip slowly while you wait for the feeling to return to your arms and then very gently start to clean up. Some people say that you shouldnt use the same utensils for making soap as you do for preparing food my question is why? Everything you use in the kitchen you wash with soap! and to that end, dump everything into the soap pot, fill with hot water - this will be your first experience of your new soap The next day, un-mould, slice and even though you can use this immediately, I have found that giving all the ingredients a chance to come to terms with their new found shape and purpose for a week or two is better. You now have the most delightful, crap free soap Its safe gentle sensuous Enjoy!

A batch of soap does all the washing of ourselves, the dishes, the dogs and the laundry for 4 months give or a take a day or two My grey water runs straight into my garden and there is no mankey, toxic grey mush at the pipes exit and the plants flourish PostScript Should you not want to put yourself through this time consuming, arm numbing and potentially dangerous process but would like to have the pleasure of using a completely guilt free, historically correct but politically incorrect, 100% natural soap, please leave a post or email me and I will make a batch specially for you!