Soap making / De fabrication de savon

Spent a fascinating day yesterday making my first ever soap...Oh I have had a plan for ages to do this but have been scared off by the 'chemistry' of it all. The more you read the more complicated it seemed BUT low and behold it was actually fairly painless...having the assistance of my friend who happens to be a real life Chemist and who works locally for Johnson and Johnson having also worked for L'Oreal probably had something to do with my sudden confidence to start mixing it with the Sodium Hydroxide! Upon the advice of my trained expert we donned some very attractive throwaway lab coats, protective eye wear and went to it mixing and melting looking right royally fashionable!! Only halting briefly by the lack of thermometers when an accurate temperature reading was required we managed to reach 'trace' with our mix of lovely coconut butter and oil and create the first stage of soap...into the mold and wrapped in a towel and left overnight to harden. A glass of NZ Riesling to celebrate the moment and a sunny afternoons work complete. Today we managed eventually to separate the mold and we now have a large creamy slab of soap waiting to be cut, stamped and left for a month till we can then test its gorgeous fragrance and bubbles...What a hoot and so easy really. They say that soap making can be addictive and I can see that, like cooking, it will be fun to experiment further...just a shame you have to wait for a month to sample!
Will keep you posted! Meanwhile here is the new look for Paris Fashion Week from Oyes!