At first blush, the counter before me has all the makings of a cooking class: kitchen scale, olive oil, Hershey’s cocoa mix, 6-pound tub of Crisco. But the latex gloves and safety goggles suggest I ...

SCOTT -- The first thing one learns when making soap is that there is a lot of stirring involved. And trickling. And waiting. And hoping not to blow anything up. But, boy, does it smell good. An eager ...

Soap-making is one of those traditional skills that are undergoing a huge renaissance. With many people craving healthier, more natural and more personally crafted skin products, artisan soaps have ...

Today I put a thin layer of wood ashes over my vegetable garden, trusting that the potash will enrich the soil with the winter rains. Our Arkansas ancestors did the same thing, but generations of ...

If you’ve ever wanted to make your own soap from scratch, this easy cold process Bastille soap recipe is the perfect place to start. It’s made from two simple oils—olive oil and coconut oil—and ...

Area park guide Ellen Cox, knowing the many merits of lye soap, will be the first to tell you, "It's one of those old heritage crafts that we want to make sure continues." While it may take some ...

Readers, this is the fourth of 12 basic homestead skills we’ll be presenting every month throughout 2019 from Kimberlee Bastien’s new book, 52 Homestead Skills. We invite you to join Kimberlee and her ...

Back in the 1960s one of the hottest shows on television was the Beverly Hillbillies. The Clampetts, a poor, backwoods family from the Ozarks, become wealthy when oil is found on their land. This ...

Martha’s Health Foods and Herbs at 215 W. Kenosha St. used to sell lye soap produced by a family living in eastern Oklahoma until the family simply stopped making it. “About 15 years ago,” said Kathy ...

Making soap is an ancient practice. It is believed the Babylonians were making soap by about 2800 B.C. Egyptian papyri, dated as early as 1550 B.C., describe soap making. Aleppo in modern Syria was a ...