really old style living?

mardatha

I have no beeswax to firm it up with. Where did you get yours ? And I'd maybe add some lavender e/o to that to make it smell sweeter.

ceridwen

Another recipe is:

2 tablespoons cocoa butter
2 tablespoons lanolin
8 tablespoons almond, sesame or safflower oil

Melt all in a double boiler.

ceridwen

HANDCREAM

Equal parts of cocoa butter, oil of sweet almonds and white wax (preferably beeswax) melted together, stirred till cold and kept in dark glass jar.

******************

This is from a 1973 book of mine - so I presume "oil of sweet almonds" is what we call almond oil these days...

mardatha

We could add stuff like this to our repertoire for xmas pressies. Plain & simple OS lotions & potions, done in nice jars with pretty ribbon and labels.:j Hand cream would be good maybe? And moisturiser with teatree e/o for greasy skin? Or mix lavender & teatree ?- or add mint for menopausal skin LOL

ceridwen

mardatha wrote: »

I have no beeswax to firm it up with. Where did you get yours ? And I'd maybe add some lavender e/o to that to make it smell sweeter.

Think it was:

www.purenuffstuff.co.uk

Theres also:

www.soapkitchenonline.co.uk

www.makeyourcosmetics.com

pink_numbers

ceridwen wrote: »

This particular one = coconut oil, beeswax, cocoa butter

I use a variety of oils, shea butter, lanolin - stuff like that generally...

sounds lovely and I really can't see any problem using a metal bowl for that

My and OH's favourite is olive oil and bees wax. The proper yellow stuff, I smell of honey every morning I bet you'll be smelling like bounty covered in honey, yum yum!

ginnyknit

mardatha wrote: »

We could add stuff like this to our repertoire for xmas pressies. Plain & simple OS lotions & potions, done in nice jars with pretty ribbon and labels.:j Hand cream would be good maybe? And moisturiser with teatree e/o for greasy skin? Or mix lavender & teatree ?- or add mint for menopausal skin LOL

Dont like lavender, I feel sick when I make my lavender bags for Bonnie Babies. But I love mint and I am menopausal - you mean you havent heard my rages from there :rotfl: I may well invest in some bits and bobs and try that one!

ceridwen

Right - still in course of using my new Excalibur dehydrator - no-one ITRW has a dehydrator that I know - so I'm picking the brains of katholicos (thank 'ee:D) by PM....

So - so far - I've been/am a bit concerned by the appearance of the dehydrator - as in "should the white top and black door of the dehydrator have a bit of a mottled appearance - or has the paint spray job in manufacture not been quite right on some of them and those sold to the British market are seconds?". (Its a ridgedy type plastic that those bits are made of). It would appear that that is probably how they come - even those sold to a more "demanding market" than the British.

I've sent Juiceland (the firm I got mine from) an email asking about the mottling and whether I should have the accessories the booklet says one gets with it (ie apple peeler, v-slicer, jerky gun or cannon). I can see that the guarantee is 5 years - checking various websites - if sold in the British market - so the bit in the booklet saying its 10 years seems to be just something the home market (ie America) gets. So maybe the accessories are only something the American market gets and presumably Britain (and other European countries...) only get the basics of the dryer trays with the dehydrator. I knew I had to pay extra to get the tray liners - but did that because I want to be able to dry wet stuff like fruit leathers as well. Not that bothered about the accessories the booklet says come too - unless European customers are "supposed" to have them too IYSWIM (ie I'd paid for them included in the price).

The booklet seems to imply that one puts the door back on after putting the trays in to dry - so thats what I'm doing.

The booklet said vegetables take 5-9 hours at 125F and has classed tomatoes as being vegetables. I have now had my tomatoes drying yesterday for 4.5 hours and then went to bed - so switched the dryer off.
Have decided I should have reclassified tomatoes as "fruit" and put them on the fruit temperature of 135F. They were still rather wet and I've now changed the temperature to 135F and put it on for another 4.5 hours (to come to that 9 hours they say as maximum).

Errrmm...katholicos says I should have taken the skins off the tomatoes to start with before drying them....<cough> I didnt....:o. Oh well - I'll leave the skins on this batch and think "Oh well - the appearance might not be quite right - but that won't matter anyway if I blitz them all to tomato dust in my liquidizer - but I guess this way I get every last calorie of food value from them".

ceridwen

pink_numbers wrote: »

sounds lovely and I really can't see any problem using a metal bowl for that

My and OH's favourite is olive oil and bees wax. The proper yellow stuff, I smell of honey every morning I bet you'll be smelling like bounty covered in honey, yum yum!

Thank you.

i guess you used 50/50 olive oil and beeswax then. Hmm...I've not got what you call the "proper yellow stuff". Without checking - I think mine's white granules..

On the thing about metal reacting with things - I know aluminium reacts with various things - so people would get warned as to what foods couldnt be cooked in aluminium saucepans or summat. I dont use aluminium things anyway - and imagine stainless steel is a metal that wouldnt react with anything? If it does react with owt - do you know of a specific list of things you could give a link to on that? I'm wondering at the moment if I should be heading into a £ shop to see if I can replace the toughened glass mixing bowls I decluttered...

pink_numbers

ceridwen wrote: »

Thank you.

i guess you used 50/50 olive oil and beeswax then. Hmm...I've not got what you call the "proper yellow stuff". Without checking - I think mine's white granules..

On the thing about metal reacting with things - I know aluminium reacts with various things - so people would get warned as to what foods couldnt be cooked in aluminium saucepans or summat. I dont use aluminium things anyway - and imagine stainless steel is a metal that wouldnt react with anything? If it does react with owt - do you know of a specific list of things you could give a link to on that? I'm wondering at the moment if I should be heading into a £ shop to see if I can replace the toughened glass mixing bowls I decluttered...

I can't quite remember the ratio off the top of my head, I'll pop back with my recipe later.

my (very basic) understand is that stainless steel does not react with most food (I hesitate to say all because you never know). I think if I can make soap in stainless steel, I can probably make most other stuff in stainless. However, like you, I prefer pyrex, and I agree with you about aluminium.