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bluegrassbubblessoapandsund-blog · 4 years

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I’m a LOUSY Blogger!

But Let’s Get To Improving That!

Well, obviously, I forgot for a while that I even had a Blog! Shame on Me! That being said, let’s start by Re-Introducing who I am, what I do and what we’re all doing here in the first place!

I am Melisa. I’m 51 years of age and I have been married to my high school sweetie since 1988 and his name is David. We’ve been together for 33 years in 2020. David and I share three beautiful grown daughters, Brittany, Kymberly and Krystina. We have six grandchildren: Jessica is 11, Rebecca is 10, Katherine is 7, Joshua is 7, Annalyna is almost 3 and our newest is Zanora, born October 18th of this year. We also have four “Fur-Babies”. A Chihuahua/Pomeranian mix named Peanut (She’s almost 9 years old), a Papillon named Popcorn (She’s almost 5 I think!), her full blooded sister Caramel (If Popcorn is 5, Caramel is 4!) and our most recent addition is Bella (she’s about 5 too, I think) Bella was my Mom’s baby. My Mom passed away a few months after she got Bella. At the time of my Mom’s passing, we didn’t want to give Bella away, and Krystina adopted her and loves her to death. However, with the recent new addition of Zanora to the household and Annalyna being a normal 2 year old, Bella inevitably “nipped” at Annalyna. So, we took Bella….for now. Who knows, she might go back to Krystina’s house, only time will tell.

What do I do? Well, I’m actually a trained Medical Assistant and Phlebotomist. I worked for a handful of doctor’s in my native state of California after graduating from school. One of my favorites was working at an Urgent Care facility where I got to see all kinds of illness and injury. But the job I enjoyed the most, was working for the Chief FAA Medical Examiner of Los Angeles County. I was in charge of the lab, ran all kinds of tests, took X-Rays as well as a myriad of other things. I loved the patient interaction and helping people get and maintain the ability to fly, through their Federally Mandated Physicals. However, David works in the Aircraft Industry, which at times, can have a high turn over rate, so you go where the jobs are (The main reason we’ve lived in 6 states throughout our marriage!) and we ended up moving to the state of Arizona from our home state of California. After graduating school and working in my field in those offices, I eventually found work with the local school district my daughter attended as a substitute Health Office Technician. After a couple more moves, and a couple health issues on my part, as well as the death of my Dad from throat cancer, we moved back to California to be closer to my Mom and Sister, Annette. Because of my love of cooking, during this time in California, I also attended Culinary Arts School. However, my husband David was working in the aircraft industry and after 9/11 happened, unfortunately the jobs in that industry dried up and he had to find “side hustles” to make ends meet as he looked for other employment within the industry. Then one day, one of the job applications he put in, panned out! The Federal Aviation Administration called and offered a job, and he took it, which facilitated our move to the state of Kentucky where we had lived before when David was serving in the U.S. Army during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. We had always said we loved Kentucky and had talked about retiring there, so THAT worked out well!

After moving to Kentucky, our two youngest daughters finished high school and our oldest daughter’s then husband, had joined the military and she came to live with us while he was doing some training. She brought with her our Granddaughter Jessi and her pregnant tummy! As my birthday approached, so did her due date, and on my Birthday (November 19), I took her to the doctor and they announced she was going to have a baby that day! So, Rebecca (Nicknamed Reba!) was my Birthday Present that year!

During Brittany’s stay I ultimately had my first back surgery where I had a titanium cage installed and a fusion done. At this point, I was no longer physically able to stand for 8 to 10 hours a day meeting the physical demands of the job I enjoyed. So, I threw myself into my hobbies of counted cross-stitch, crocheting, reading, cooking and scrapbooking.

After living in the suburbs of Louisville for a couple years, we bought a house 30 miles away in the little town of Shelbyville. By this time, Kymberly had moved back to California after graduating high school, and Krystina had just graduated. Brittany had moved back with her then husband, out of state again. (😥)

Krystina moved out eventually and it was just David and I our dogs Rotunda (another Chihuahua/Pomeranian mix who was 12 years old), and our puppy, Peanut. Kids and grandkids grew, families grew and, as most “empty nesters” David and I began to enjoy our time together as “just us”.

Then, at a family get together (I actually don’t remember the date. One of those “health issues” I experienced was a mini stroke when I was 30 years old caused by birth control pills and my morbid obesity at the time, they concluded. Thus, the stroke obliterated my able to remember things as well as it use to!) I noticed that Reba was having, what I thought at the time was, dry skin issues. I began to take notice and pay attention to the things with other family members and their skin. ( I guess that was Medical Assistant in me!) I was trying to figure out what was causing the problem for her because she complained that the patches itched and sometimes hurt. Around the same time, David had to have major surgery. He was diagnosed with an Acoustic Neuroma. It had attached itself to the working parts of his ear, his facial nerves and his brain stem. Ultimately, they removed all but a very tiny piece of the Neuroma as well as all of the workings of his ear, so he became completely deaf in that ear, and had a second surgery to install a Cochlear Implant. As he was healing from that, he neglected to shave and I noticed that he, too, was getting these dry, flaky, itchy patches where his mustache would grow. And the research began in earnest!

Because I am a redhead (As is Kym, Reba, Annalyna and we haven’t figured out if Zanora is or not!), I have struggled with sensitive skin issues since I was a kid. I never got a “tan”, I got “pink”, “lobster red” or obtained more freckles. As I got/get older, I develop(ed) more and more sensitivities to things like laundry detergent and shampoos/conditioners. So, using my own experiences the first thing I looked at was laundry detergents. From there I looked at the shampoo/conditioner, and from there it lead me to the “soap” we used in the shower/tub.

The information I was gathering was quite interesting and little shocking, to say the least. Since I was a kid, I remember seeing commercials on TV about how actual “soap” was bad for the skin, that using XYZ Brand of this or that was more “moisturizing” and better for your skin. These commercials through my youth, told me that using “soap” was drying, contributed to wrinkles as you age, leaves a “film” on your skin, makes your tub/shower have excessive “soap scum”, etc., but as I was researching, what I found astonished me. Especially since the TV told me how bad actual SOAP was!

My first thought after going down this rabbit hole of research was, “Wow, maybe I need to change the stuff we’re washing with”. Why? Well, I learned that what I was using at the time, a liquid body wash distributed by a company who’s named after a small white bird (😉) could not legally be called “soap” even though that’s what we all call it. The process used to make this body wash literally removes the glycerin (something called a “surfactant” that does actually help to moisturize to an extent, but is defined as a compound that lowers the surface tension between two liquids, between a gas and a liquid, or between a liquid and a solid. Surfactants may act as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, foaming agents, and dispersants.), only to add it back in, and the additional additives they actually added to make it “better” for your skin, as was their “claim”, were actually not necessary and were detergents as well.

“DETERGENTS?!”, I thought to myself….”like, I’m actually washing my body with laundry detergent?” Um… yeah-you are (🤨)! So, I grabbed my bottle of body wash and started to actually read what I was putting on the biggest organ my body has. The organ that absorbs everything from environmental pollutants, to what you put on it, to what you ingest. (Medical training kicking in here again.)

The ingredient list was LONG, containing words I couldn’t even pronounce. (Can you?) Then I thought to look at the “soap” and “body wash” that Reba was using, and read the same ingredients; detergents, etc. The only difference was they added extra stuff to balance the pH to the eyes (making it “tear free”), rather than the body. What does the pH actually do? Let’s look at that…

pH stands for potential hydrogen with the “p” meaning potential and the “H” standing for hydrogen. The pH scale is a scale that is used to rank the relative basicity or acidity of substances to other substances, based on the amount of hydrogen ion activity in a substance. (sciencetrends.com)

Now, I could go into and define and describe all the ingredients I’m talking about, but that would be a science lesson in and of itself. Suffice to say, I didn’t like what I read and learned and thought there had to be something better that would help the dry, itchy skin my loved ones were experiencing. So, I looked into actual “soap”. As I was reading about soap I came upon the different FDA laws regarding the making of “soap” both in solid and liquid forms that we were all using. The FDA has a law that states that the items used to actually wash your body, that you buy at places like the grocery store, or big box stores, cannot legally be called a “soap”. Because of the additives and processes used to create what we were using, the law states that they have to be called something else. So, corporate America gave these items names like “Facial Cleansing Bar”, “Moisturizing Body Wash”, etc. Wait! What? You’re telling me that almost 99% of the stuff at the store I buy my family to wash with on a daily basis couldn’t legally be called soap because they’re “detergents” and corporate America is conning the populous at large? That would be a hard yes. Well, then… (Go look at the wrapper or container your current stuff comes in the from the store and see what it’s called… I’ll wait.)

What did washing with detergents do to the skin? It makes it dry, flaky, itchy and it can exacerbate skin issues that may be underlying such as eczema, psoriasis, allergic dermatitis, the weather, etc. Well darn! How do you fix THAT issue? Back to actual “soap”…

I started to google “soap” and all the sudden a new world opened up to me. I found all kinds of places that were selling the ingredients to make your own soap at home, videos that showed you from start to finish. The different ways to make it. The different ingredients and their benefits… the lists went on and on. I actually got quite overwhelmed. So, I just started making notes, and doing more research and watching more videos. I learned that you can’t make actual SOAP without Sodium Hydroxide (Lye). Even the “Body Washes” and “Beauty Bars” have Sodium Hydroxide in them. (Or it’s sibling Potassium Hydroxide, which is used to make a liquid “soap” or “wash”.) HOWEVER…..

While watching and reading about making SOAP, there were CONSTANT warnings about Lye Safety and how dangerous it is to work with Lye. The kinds of safety equipment that would be necessary to work with it, and honestly, I got intimidated and scared. But then I saw something called “Melt and Pour”. This is a Glycerin based soap that is already “made”, having gone through the processes necessary to make it SOAP. All you had to do, was melt it in a microwave, color it, add any fragrance or essential oils to it, and pour it in a mold. You simply let that cool and harden and BOOM, a handmade bar of soap that you’ve made at home.

It was a fun learning experience for sure. To this day, I still make some of the Melt and Pour soaps and add them to my other soaps and I let the grandkids work with it to make their own for gifts for family members. But I really wanted to be able to use those fantastic oils and butters that really benefit the skin! So, I took my Culinary Arts training, and bit the bullet. Because you’re following a recipe and a technique, it was quite similar to actual cooking! I watched a thousand more videos, including the ones about Lye Safety, over and over and over again, just to be sure I KNEW what I was doing and felt comfortable enough to work with it. In the Culinary world we have something called “Mise en Place”, which basically means “everything in it’s place”. You should get everything out that you plan to use, weigh, measure, the tools, etc. Everything should be ready before you start. So, I did that. Then, I set to work making my first bars of soap made with Sodium Hydroxide, in a design called a “Tiger Stripe”. I honestly can’t tell you what the scent was, or the colors that I used. But I remember it was fun! I was so very proud, looking at that wet soap in the mold… Now for the Saponification Process.

What is the Saponification Process? Saponification is a process by which triglycerides (fats) are reacted with sodium or potassium hydroxide (lye) to produce glycerol (emollient) and a fatty acid salt, called “soap.” The triglycerides are most often animal fats or vegetable oils. When sodium hydroxide is used, a hard soap is produced. (thoughtco.com) This process renders the Sodium Hydroxide (or Potassium Hydroxide) completely inert. It’s done it’s job of turning the oils, butters and water into a bar of soap. So, the Sodium/Potassium Hydroxide will in no way negatively affect your skin at all, whereas when soap hundreds of years ago was made, it was hard on the skin. In fact, my Grandma’s generation still viewed “lye soap” as something quite harsh. Basically because the lye that was used was made from wood ashes, wasn’t as pure and the science that we use today (computer programs that help to determine the proper amount of Lye, water, oils and butters that will make the best bar of soap, with proper hardness, moisturizing properties, cleansing abilities, bubbles and no harsh or adverse effects from the lye.) hadn’t been invented yet. They also didn’t have any of the additives that we use today like colloidal oatmeal, milk powders, etc.

So, 24 hours after I made that first loaf of soap, I cut it. It was the best bar of soap I’d ever seen! I cut it with a knife I bought specifically for soap. I cut it unevenly, and I didn’t care. Then I had to figure out where to let it “cure”. Curing is where you set the newly made soap aside for 4 to 6 weeks and allow all the excess water left in the soap, after the saponification process, to evaporate, leaving the bar as hard and as long lasting as possible. I found the perfect place, in my foyer. Then I immediately wanted to make more…and more… Pretty soon, my foyer was filled with newly made, curing soap! Anyone that came to the front door, or entered the house, always asked what smelled so good!

I tested the soap 5 weeks later, as did David, in the shower. It was bubbly and it was a different feeling on my skin than what I was use to, in a good way. I felt… cleaner? Was that the word I’d use? Yes, it was! I felt like there was just clean skin there, not something else. I don’t quite know how to explain it, other than I didn’t feel like I had a thin film of “slime” on my skin that the aforementioned body wash I had been using, left on me that was meant to make my mind think this was a “conditioning, moisturization” of my skin. It was “slime” to me, now that I had used my brand new bar of soap! Well, now I was hooked! David’s skin, after about a week, showed improvement as well! Holy Heck, what did I just find!?

For the next solid year, I played with different recipes, different oils and butters, different molds, different colors, different additives…. I found a recipe I seriously loved. I shared the bars with family and friends and finally was told so many times..”This stuff is great! You should sell it because I’d buy it”. So, I did. And Bluegrass Bubbles was born… We got a business license and became official, then started our website, bluegrassbubbles.com

In the next installment of the blog, I’ll continue some of the story! Please remember to share and invite your friends to the blog! Feel free to ask questions and interact!

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