You've found the famous Dave's Garden website! Join this friendly global community that shares tips and ideas for home and gardens, along with seeds and plants!
Check out the DG homepage for a brief overview of what you'll find in this gardening mega-site.
Login
If you don't have an account yet, visit the registration page to sign up.
I saw your thread. It is some what old. Did you ever run arcross a recipe that interested you?
My son took a speech class and one assignment was to demostrate, and explain how to do something, so he chose how to make soap and even took some bars to give away. He got an A!
For this class he collected some Jewell weed at the time and stored it in an canning jar with alcohol. He really is allergic to poison ivy and we have been thinking about using it. That has been three years ago. So I imagine it would be excellant to add this alcohol - what do you call such a thing (tincture or enflugen) into a third of tallow oil soap/third of coconut oil soap/ and a third of olive oil soap.--- add the water, powdered milk. Can you think of anything else that should be added? Maybe a little extra olive oil to make the soap more moist.
I am growing jewelweed this year, I hope to have lots of it next year, in hopes to make a soap one day using jewel weed, every time I do a search on the net for it though it only comes in a tincture. and is high dollar. I'm not sure if the leaves would be useful in soap or not. I'd love to find out more about it though
Hi:
I have made lots of soaps. I have used dried leaves of mints or calendula petals, or even Chamomile flower petals, rose petals too. I do not like it. I do not like anything in my soap. Not even oatmeal. Yes tinctures and effluagents are what they are called - the alcohol is suppose to extract all the oil and any organic molecules out of the plant, and that is what I add to my soaps when I make them. The longer you have them in alcohol the better they are suppose to be. I used flowers, stems, leaves - all in the tincture. I was really into it at one time, and even bought a book on tincture and efflugents. Now I have lost interest, but at one time it was a real joy and excitment about it. .
You are more than welcome Kathy-Ann!
I think I read, you - actually sell your soap, so I feel some what humbled to be telling a professional anything.
Never the less I did enjoy the thread, It may give me the enthusiasm to mix up the jewel weed soap. I do not know if it works, that is will it soothe inflamed, itchy skin. My son takes no chances of getting poison ivy in the first place. When he is cleaning out a fence row or anything near poison ivy he goes directly to the laundry room strips his clothes, grabs a bottle of bleach, and heads for the shower. We have found out that if he puts bleach directly on him, then turns on the water, and rinse untill all the slime of the bleach is gone that it strips all the oils of poison ivy too. I have made soap on the lye side to strip all the oils from the skin too. Either way it is hard on the skin, but at least the lye soap is not so hard on the lungs.
When you make this jewel weed soap are you going to leave it on the harsh side or will you make it gentle?
I'll make it gentle , but not for a while, as my jewel weed is new this year, and I'll let it flower and drop seed and before frost kills the plants i'llchop them all down and make that tincture out of it.
Thanks again for the help. Yes I do sell my soap . both my kids are highly allergic , infact my daughter came home with poison ivy today, I'm tempted to go pull some jewel weed for her LOL break it open and rub it on the spots. I hear that great plantain is helpful for poison ivy too and I have gazillions of that stuff all over the place.
Oh, I didn't know that about plantain, we have lots of that, too! Good idea to let the jewelweed go to seed first, so you'll have a crop next year. Let me know, Kathy Ann, when you make your soap--I'll probably just buy it from you.
I'll try to remember to let you know. I probably won't make any till late fall when the seed drops, like you say, i'll have a good crop of it next year.
I use rubbing alcohol on my skin anytime I've come into contact with PI - let it evaporate, then wash with cool water and soap. Seems to work well...I've only had a few blisters since I started taking this precaution. (It's when you DON'T know you've been exposed that can cause trouble ;o)
Terry;
A rougher treatment than alcohol, but one that is 100 percen, and you end up with NO blisters at all, is to use bleach.
However alcohol is very good at cutting oil too and then as you said rinse it off.
But back to bleach - it really cuts oils:
You do not leave the bleach on your skin - You put the bleach on and then rinse with water, keep rubbing your skin in the area that you put the bleach on. As long as the bleach is slimy feeling, then you can bet the oil of the poison ivy is also there. If you rinse all bleach off --all the slimy feeling off - then off goes the poison ivy oil too.
When my son was small, he was extremely allergic to poison ivy.
The first time he ever had it was also the worse he ever had it. He took a shower with his father - his father had just came in from checking the fence line.The reaction lasted a week and he had to have steroids because it was on his face - next to his eyes.
What we did wrong was; well besides the shower was ---- the bed sheets needed to be cleaned as soon as we reliazed he had poison ivy. Sheets needs to be washed with a little bleach - or if colored sheets washed with (pine sol it too cuts oil. alcohol too cuts oil.) Also any clothes that he may have worn needed to be doubled washed or washed with bleach or pine sol. Even the next morning - bleach should have been rubbed on his skin and rinsed off. The oils can linger on the skin for a week or more!!!! A skin reaction to poison ivy is really short lived. If it is going on more than a few hours - that is because the oil from the poison ivy is still there.
Do be careful with fumes from the bleach so it will not hurt your eyes or lungs. Same can be said of alcohol too.
That is what makes lye soap so good with poison ivy. It strips all the oils from your skin. Sure it makes your skin dry, sure it makes your skin feel like if you move too fast it will crack - that is because all the oil your skin makes has been stripped away - but so has the oil of poison ivy too.
You should see the ugly rash I have on my neck from weed-whacking and having the weed debris rain down on me. Musta been poison ivy mixed in, or maybe I'm allergic to other weeds, too. It's been keeping me up at night. Wish I woulda thought to rub jewelweed on my neck! I rubbed it on my hands and arms, and I have almost no blisters there.
Thanks, Liquidamber, I was thinking maybe I should've washed my sheets, too. I did wash up at the sink when I came in, but didn't wash my hair..DUH! Live and learn, huh?
It does not take much learning when living with poison ivy.
I hope your neck clears up very soon, and I assure you I feel for you from the very bottom of my heart.
I've been making jewelweed soap for a couple of years. Just find a soap recipe you like and substitute Jewelweed extract for the water. My recipe is proprietary but it's easy to buy, though. I've seen it anywhere from Ace Hardware to Whole Foods and all kinds of places in between. Good luck!
I did enjoy the video! Thank you denimangle!
The lady making this soap also had some very nice equipment - her soap cutter was really nice- I wonder if I could make me one like that?
Also this video lead me to Susan Weed. She is different, that is for sure - I like the way she points out details about plants --I loved the lesson on wild carrot and birth control, but she lost me on the poke weed. I use to eat it as a kid when young shoots came out in the spring - and that is the only time I was taught to eat it - and no other time by my most beloved grandmother - and I am not about to go againest my raising or my grandmother.
