Farm Fresh Blog

My husband, the cattle man, tolerated my Boer goats. He grudgingly accepted my switch to dairy goats. And because he knew how to milk a cow, he taught me to milk a goat, but that was about the extent of his interest - until I started soaping.

I had already made two batches of soap at the vacant house we are trying to sell. (no disturbs me and the house smells great for realtors!) He had never watched me make soap, but was noticing that his empty cardboard cowboy hat boxes were quickly being filled with curing bars. Last Sunday I took him to Wal Mart with me as I stocked up on soaping supplies.  Because I'd been wanting to try the loofah soap, I grabbed a couple of overpriced loofah sponges for the day I ever got around to making the molds.

I hadn't planned on using them for this batch of soap, but as I started making soap, I soon realized that he was puttering in the barn.  He came back into the house, grabbed a loofah, wet it, crammed it into his tube, measured it, and proceeded to cut two pvc molds.  I didn't bother him. He was clearly a man on a mission.
 
He then had two tubes with no end caps and no apparent plan for how to get the hardened soap out of the mold. He came back into the kitchen, and rummaged around until he found two coffee cans.  He then sprayed his cans and his tubes with PAM. He lined the bottom of the cans with freezer paper.  I just made soap and kept my mouth shut. The loofah tubes were HIS project. Clearly he planned on using my batch of soap for his project, so I mentally wrote off this batch of soap even as I was mixing it up.
 
He put his tubes in the coffee cans and placed the cans in a shallow pan of ice water.  I had my doubts, but it was his project.  When the batch was ready to be poured, I poured some in a large pyrex measuring cup for him. He poured it into each sponge. He filled two sponges and used the rest in a flat mold. The next day he used a green bean can to push his soap out of the mold and cut it up with a miter box and a serrated bread knife. Wonder of wonders! ALL the soap turned out!
 
Now he wants his own rubber gloves for soapmaking this weekend.  Whodathunkit?

Other Half's Loofah soap: