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We are so excited for our first farmers’ market in the San Diego area! We will be at the Sikes Adobe Farmers’ Market across the street from Westfield North County in Escondido tomorrow, Sunday Feb 28. So if you're in the area, come on by! We will be selling some things we haven’t yet put on the website -- hydrosols, wreaths, and lavender bundles -- along with soap, neck and eye pillows and sachets.
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 There is something so magical about making cold-process soap: the chemistry of it, the "danger" of it, the creativity of it, and the mystery of it. I've tried the "melt and pour" method (premade soap bricks that you melt, add scent to and then pour into molds) and I've tried the hot-processed method (quicker saponification in the crock-pot for those who like instant gratification), and while those are perfectly acceptable methods, cold-process is the one for me. It's like a little bit of Christmas every time I get to unwrap the soap I made the previous day to see what I've created. So I thought I'd spread the magic and share my lavender oatmeal recipe for anyone who would like to give it a try.
I've also added a few links to products that I use and have worked well for me. There are also some great websites for ingredients, products, and instruction. I especially like Brambleberry not only for products but for the instruction. (Of course if you'd rather just buy some soap, I can help you with that as well!)   Last weekend, after making modifications to our design, we made another attempt at distillation. Mark attached a separate hose to the top of the pressure cooker and also modified the coiled copper cooling section so that gravity could help pull the the steam and resulting distillate through to the funnel. The modifications worked beautifully -- the attached hose and copper coiling quickly brought the distillate into the funnel and we could see a thin layer of oil forming on the top. But as we were emptying the funnel, the oil layer got smaller and smaller and finally disappeared altogether. We were perplexed so I read as much as I could find online and I think there might be a few issues going on here:
I would also like to replace the radiator hose coming from the pressure cooker with a copper hose -- and Mark wants to modify the hose to be more of a funnel shape as well |
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May 2022
AuthorHello! My name is Pam Reynolds Baker and I am a mom/wife, writer, and lavender farmer who lives in Dundee Oregon . |
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