I started out this morning with the intention of making some homemade lavender soap since my olive oil and goat’s milk melt-and-pour soap bases arrived from Brambleberry. I broke out the molds and lavender oil and some of the fresh and dried lavender I’ve been clipping and saving.

Then it occurred to me that I have enough rosemary growing now that I can spare some for the soap and still leave plenty for cooking. Lavender and rosemary go so well together, after all, and combined would make the soap smell just dreamy.

So I put on my shoes and sweater (since it’s still chilly out after all that rain) and headed out to harvest a bit from the garden. Along the way, I realized that I have quite a few things growing out there that I can probably add to the soap! I always see handmade soap filled with lovely botanical flowers, so my imagination ran a bit wild with all the possibilities.

Like using the sunflowers and nasturtiums…

The morning glories would be beautiful chopped up and added in with them, too.

Pretty much any of the wildflowers could be blended in there, I thought.

So then I spent a few minutes carefully picking a few of each of these, choosing the ones that are just starting to fade. I brought them all in and started to put them in the dehydrator to speed things along and then remembered that I’ve been using it to do onions and the pungent odor was still there even after washing it.

Yuck!

So, needless to say, it’s probably not a good idea to use the dehydrator to dry out my flowers for soap.

That made me wonder if I can use fresh flowers instead, so I did a bit of research and it turns out I can, but they might turn brown and get icky after awhile and I don’t want that. Also, I learned, much to my disappointment, that not all flowers are good for the skin and with how sensitive I am as it is, I don’t want to risk putting the wrong thing in there and being sorry for it later.

So now I’m back to square one except I need to let the lavender and rosemary dry out before I use them. Which means my soap making will have to wait a few days since I have to do it the old fashioned way or risk having onion scented rosemary and lavender soap!

That would be pretty gross. 😄