Zero Waste

 October 2018

I had already planned a week of making zero waste products; in the sewing room I have been making textile kitchen products like beeswax wraps and kitchen cloths. Ready for selling at an event I have helped organise on behalf of Friends of the Earth. I also had a soap making day planned with my like minded friend, Maddy We have both individually wanted to have a go at making soap bars for years now, but we were both equally intimidated by doing it, as it involves working with caustic soda, and people warn you against it. Together, we were happy to take the plunge, share the experience and have a laugh. We also made some moisturiser, shampoo and body wash, the latter turned out absolutely rank, but we are both adamant we are going to use it as it was the most expensive thing we made (using Castile oil). We added honey to it, which was a suggestion in the recipe, but the honey we used was from Portugal, and had a really weird smell to it, kind of burnt, which as Maddy pointed out the recent Portuguese forest fires... hmm

Melting fats for soap making

Blending ingredients

It was a productive and fulfilling week.

We have also invited people to come and sell any eco products they trade or hand make, so we can show people the alternatives to buying things that are polluting and covered in plastic. Hence why I will be taking my Eco Kitchen supplies, which include beeswax wraps (an alternative to cling film or tin foil), for sandwiches and cheese, cake tin covers, bread covers, produce bags (you take these shopping with you and put your loose fruit and veg items in it) and kitchen wipes (re-usable). I have enjoyed making these sets, but boy, I'm a bit done with grating blocks of wax, its not the easiest resource to work with. I also plan to sell them at my up coming Winter Floating markets.

A 2lb cake tin cover - we bake a lot on Foxy

This week Maddy and I made more soap (we were much quicker at it this week, and added colouring (special soap dyes and more scent (essential oils), we dyed it orange and chose orange and frankincense as the fragrance (very apt for a seasonal time of year coming up in December). I was going to use food colouring, but was reminded by Kat (our Zero Waste making guru), that one would end up with stained hands. We discussed last weeks creations and both agree the shampoo is really good, and you even get enough lather going. Our disgusting smell body wash seems to have calmed down a little bit, but I will endeavor to cover myself in our home made coconut moisturiser to deter any rotten smell i may give off. The soap has been curing, and looks like soap, now we just need to cure it for a month before it can be used.

Toiletries and detergents

Eco kitchen wraps

Its been a bonding experience and liberating for us, next week we plan to focus on making our soap even more individual, and trying out making creams and lip balms (for presents - I'm not saying the C word yet, but yule know what I mean!!) We are both highly creative people, and feeling very empowered so the world is currently our oyster, who knows what products we will be making in the future. watch this space #sistersaredoingitforthemselves

Our thanks goes to Kat Goodwin for exposing us to 'zero waste making circles'
for any of the recipes of the things we have made please click on the link below
Recipes

**Please Note**
all of my fabrics are sourced responsibly, for this project I used remnants and didn't buy anything new apart from the organic cotton muslin