Here is one of the first batches we've crafted where real herbs are added at trace. It involves making a fairly strong tea with approximately one tablespoon of spearmint leaves in 23 oz boiling distilled water. The leaves are strained from the tea and the container is re-weighed. Several more ounces of distilled water will have to be added to bring the weight back up to 23 oz prior to adding the lye. This is also one of the first batches of soap we have crafted without Coconut Oil. We made up for it with plenty of Palm and Palm Kernel Oils, along with Olive Oil and it seems to have excellent lathering capabilities.  This is also the first time we used Beeswax to add hardness to the bar. Note: The beeswax has the highest melting point of all the oils used here, so when you are melting your oils, you'll find that the beeswax will melt last.

Cool the tea mixture in the refrigerator and start measuring the oils into your stock pot or like container.  Clip a candy thermometer to your stock pot to monitor the temperature of the oils.

When the tea has cooled to 30-40F, slowly add 9.5 oz lye and continue stirring until the lye has completely dissolved. Clip a thermometer to your container and continually monitor the temperature. You will need your safety gear at this stage and you have to take care not to breath the fumes. This is definitely a soap of "firsts". Normally, we order our lye from an online supplier, but this time, we purchased an 18 oz can of Red Devil Lye from the grocery store. It is 100% sodium hydroxide. Red Devil brand seems to be stronger with a higher reaction than the other lye and we are very happy with it.

We mixed the oils and lye at the point when each reached a temperature of between 125F and 130F. It took about two minutes with the hand blender to reach trace, so we had to work quickly to add the Peppermint EO and crushed Spearmint and Sweet Basil leaves. Within six hours, the soap was easily removed from the mold and cut into bars - see above.

Note: Even if you are not substituting any of the base oils in our formulations with another oil, be sure to run the entire formula through a lye calculator to ensure that you are using the accurate amount of lye. Do this as a rule, regardless of circumstances. If you make it a habit, you won't go wrong.

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