down and dirty

Just finished reading the best book!

The Dirt On Clean: An Unsanitized History, by Katherine Ashenburd, tells the story of baths and bathrooms through the centuries.  It answered all of those historic hygiene questions that you wondered, but were afraid to ask.  

The subject of clean has come up quite a bit in our house this season because I have been spending more than a few hours up to my elbows in hot water, crafting felted soaps for this season’s holiday-shopping madness.

Here is the visual:

Stocking stuffer?  Better than a lump of coal!

These hand-made, cold-process soaps have been felted in wool.  A kind of soap-and-washcloth-in-one. 

The Upside of the Situation:   

• Wool has natural antifungal properties that will freshen and extend the life of the soap inside.   

• After the soap has been used, the casing can be repurposed as a pin cushion or slit open to insert a new soap. 

• Creamy lather and gentle exfoliation.

• They are cute, inexpensive, and gifty. 

• Our whole house smells SO GOOD!

      The Downside:

• I only had enough time to make 150 soaps to felt this summer.  Limited supply!

•   Even though they are only the size of a round bar of soap, they still take a lot of work to get them into their initial shape. I have the most muscle-y wrists I have ever had.  
•   I spent so much time in the kitchen listening to the radio that I ran out  of This American Life archives to stream.  I now have to wait for them as they come each week.  Boo!