I decided to get a bit adventurous for a change after thinking it over last night. I usually just melt and pour the bulk soap I buy into the molds without adding anything (just to be safe!) but I am so freaking tired of playing it safe with everything and wanted to spice them up a bit (see my last post).

So I weeded out (no pun intended) the wildflowers from everything I gathered and settled on using just the sunflowers, geranium, rosemary and lavender, along with some organic oatmeal and orange and lavender essential oils.

These are all things that I know are currently safe for my mast cells because I use them in other things like cooking and homemade cleaning products and also by doing a skin patch test. I have to do this frequently even with things I use all the time because with mast cell disease, even things that I think are safe can turn unsafe overnight. It’s quite maddening.

So I rubbed the sunflowers and geranium on my wrist and waited to see if there was a reaction, which there wasn’t, thank goodness! I half expected there to be, given my history. Sometimes I don’t react for a few hours (or even a few days if it’s food) but since there was none, I deduced that they were safe enough.

It was all very scientific. 😄

After that I had to finish drying out the flowers which only took about an hour in the dehydrator.

The hubs had washed it extra good for me to get the onion smell out, which was awfully nice of him and made it possible for me to get all the soaps done quickly.

The lavender and rosemary was already pretty well dried out from leaving it out overnight so I used them first. I started with the goat’s milk soap first and added those along with the oatmeal and a few drops of lavender essential oil to it.

I only used one of the blocks of each kind of soap (I had two of each so four total) and that gave me four bars of olive oil and four bars of goat’s milk. That will last for several months and I’ll save the rest for another day, once these are used up.

I have plenty of dried flowers left over and will collect more over the next few weeks as things keep dying off out there.

I’ve been using Kirk’s castile soap for a few weeks now because I was too lazy to melt and pour my own, and it works well without triggering a reaction but after using my new lavender & oatmeal bar this morning I’m hooked. I’m so glad I decided to get adventurous in my soap making because it totally paid off!

And the best part is my mast cells are happy.

Well, for now at least… 🙄