the junk haus
Everyday items are always fun to be creative with, making something beautiful out of something ordinary. Food, glass bottles, newspaper and now yes soap. I have heard of the thrill of microwaving a bar of soap, but I have never tried it. With nothing on the agenda one night, I decided to give it a go, after all my microwave did need some cleaning and some soap foam might just do the trick. After stopping into my local Chinese deli for some Ivory bars, yes it has to be Ivory, I got all prepped for the excitement. Using a plate to minimize the mess, I popped one bar in the microwave, powered it up good and high, and waited for the movie to begin. I don’t care if I killed a few brain cells watching that bar foam up like crazy, it was so awesome. It started foaming at one end and after about a minute was a giant white cloud. Afraid I would fill the whole microwave, I opened the door and pulled the white mass out. It was so light and airy, yet quite hard. If you want the chemistry behind the process, here it is. The soap blob, was absolutely dry within a couple of minutes and I stuck it in a bowl and broke it down to soap dust with my hands. This is when I decided that I would create soap balls, adding fun ingredients to the dust, mixing it up and adding some hot water to get it to stick together. I always keep random stuff on hand and I happened to have a lot of great ingredients for this, dried rose buds, rosemary, wheat germ, poppy, cinnamon. It was quite easy and the three balls I made each from a new bar, would be great wrapped and given as gifts. I made a rosemary and rose, orange blossom and wheat germ and cinnamon and brown sugar. These were such fun and simple gifts to create that I definitely would recommend doing this at a children’s b day party or even with friends. And the best part is that the mess is just what cleans the counters anyway. An experiment that can do no wrong. So if you have any other fun crazy projects or ideas, send them my way and I can be the one to break my microwave or burn the counter in the process. I am always up for new things to make.
