Well, we've finally reached present day. I have posted all the previous journal entries using the date of 10/20 so that they'd all show up on the same page. No sense archiving it all into different months since the blog is brand new and I want all the starting posts to be seen at a glance.

I haven't made any soap for a while because I had run out of lye. I get most of my soapmaking ingredients via mail order but I have been getting lye at one of the local hardware stores. There are restrictions on shipping sodium hydroxide and the shipping costs are pretty high due to the weight. Plus some companies also charge a hazardous material fee.

Anyway, you have to be very careful when purchasing lye because predominately, it's used as a drain cleaner and therefore, a lot of manufacturers add other ingredients to their lye that would be BAD for use in soap. The most well-known brand of 100% lye for home-based soapers has always been Red Devil Lye, manufactured by Reckitt-Benckiser. Well these folks have decided to discontinue making the Red Devil Lye product and instead are coming out with a new drain cleaner that is NOT 100% lye. I don't know if their decision was based on other disreputable things that people might be making with their product (more on this later), but home-based soapers are taking a real hit. Reckitt-Benckiser received a plethora of phone calls from soapers across the nation and it was the hope of many that it would be understood that if they discontinued the manufacture of Red Devil, it would do a great disservice to the home-based soaping community. Unfortunately, Reckitt-Benckiser's decision is firm and they have been telling soapers that they hadn't ever endorsed the use of their product for soapmaking anyway and basically they're out of luck. Those filthy lyers!

It has gotten to the point that in many hardware stores, if you purchase too much lye at one time, the local authorities are called in and you are questioned. A lot of soapers have taken to carrying soaps and soap tutorials with them when they go to purchase their lye just in case they are forced to explain themselves. I've called all of the hardware stores in our area and either they flat out don't carry lye, they don't know what it is and I have to explain it to them, or they do know what it is and treat me with a lot of skepticism when I tell them why I want to know if they carry it. I have found only one store that carries Red Devil and as it won't be manufactured anymore, I'm sure they either have a limited supply (although they seem blissfully unaware of this), or they keep ordering it from THEIR supplier, who will eventually run out. Anyway, supplies are costly, so we picked up only a couple of canisters when we were in the area. I'll keep frequenting that same hardware store to acquire as much as I can, but eventually, it looks as if I'll have to use mail order.

There you have the lye story. So now that I have some more lye, I'll soon be making some more soap. Maybe over the weekend if the kids permit. :)