I Love Olive Oil Soap

What I really love is having my high school chemistry class make it's own soap. We did it many times at NEHS in Hsinchu, Taiwan, but this year when I got to the Bronx High School of Science there were massive safety concerns about it that put the k'bosh on this or any other interesting things a chemistry teacher ought to do. In some ways that is understandable, given the multiple deaths and bomb-making arrests that happened at school that year.

Historically my goal with soap making was to demonstrate both molecular reasons for solubility and also to introduce the fat molecule. Problem was that the proportions came out unpredictable and hence so the results of the soapmaking session. It didn't help that the starting fat was variable; I encouraged to try making soap from butter, bacon, chocolate, premium ice cream, vaseline -- almost anything they thought might have a high content of appropriate fat. Vaseline they found out didn't work (CAN'T work -- it's not a fat) much to the annoyance of Joan Chan, who thought I should have warned her that it wouldn't work. Also I remember Yen-Kuo Hsu's doomed effort to make it from vanilla ice cream, technically a fat source but too rich in sugar and water to work well.

Anyway, here in Sonoma yesterday, I found a great shop that cooks up batches of soap on a weekly basis with great quality and excellent flavor options including soap with lavender seeds, chunks of ginger, tomato, green tea, etc. And their web site had good advice about using and making soap. And the clerk, Feng, was super nice.