As usual, I spent as much of my summer break as possible hiding away in a bush-clad hidey-hole in Northland. My little cabin (shack? hovel?) is miles from anywhere and has no power or phone. Lighting is by candle, cooking by gas bottle, and entertainment is self-created. This time I did two little recycling projects. Both took more time than I would have bothered with in the city, but they were fun! They may be something that children could do on a rainy holiday day - start saving the ingredients now so you have them in stock when the time comes... 1) Recycling candles. Over the years I have accumulated large quantities of previously-melted candle wax, and have been given several decorative candles that have too much wax, so the wick gets drowned and the candle doesn't put out much light. I also have a collection of saved glass jars. One day on my holiday, I used a potato peeler to pare down all the candles that were too fat, so the wick could cope with the amount of wax that was left to burn. Then I collected the shavings from those candles, and grated the saved melted wax from candles that have been previously burned. I put a new candle wick (available from craft shops) into each glass jar, and shook in enough wax shavings to hold the wick upright. Voila! A new candle. 2) Recycling soap. I never throw away the stub-ends of bars of soap. I keep them in a jar in my linen cupboard - they add a lovely fragrance to the cupboard and the soap gradually dries out. This holiday I grated, chopped and crushed all my dried soap-ends. I put them in a glass bowl over a simmering pot, and added a dash of hot water to the soap crumbs. After about 15 minutes of prodding with a stick (!) the soap had melted to a gel. I took it off the heat, added a few drops of lavender oil, and spooned the soap into an old muffin tray. The tray of new soap is now drying in my linen cupboard. I expect it to be ready after about three days of drying. Voila! New soap! (Best of all, after years of rolling his eyes at my collections of soap-ends, jars and candle wax, my partner had to admit I'm not crazy after all!)
Submitted by Lindis on 14 January 2009 13:39:46
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Soap update:
A week after putting my soap into the moulds, I have just taken them out again. To remove the soap from the muffin tins, I put the tins in the freezer for a few minutes (I'm back in civilisation now) then briefly into hot water. The soap popped out very easily. They need to dry some more to become firm, so I'll be leaving them in the hot water cupboard until I'm ready to use them.
As an aside, it's worthwile keeping the different colours of soap apart. If you melt all the colours together you can get a murky, greyish result. You might like to do one batch of, say, blues and greens and another of pinks and yellows. Or you could melt only the white soap in your bowl, then throw in your crushed coloured soaps at the last minute so you end up with flecks of colour in a white base. Apparently you can also use food colourings, and you can buy special soap colourings (but I haven't tried them).
Submitted by Lindis on 19 January 2009 15:32:42