Recently my husband and I have been watching episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies on ME (Memorable Entertainment) TV as we enjoy our breakfast in the morning. I guess you can say we like a “heapin’ helpin’ of their hospitality” with our breakfast.

On one episode, earlier this week, Ellie Mae was carrying a tray of Grannies homemade lye soap, as one of them there city fellows arrived to invite her to a party. He looked at the soap and asked if it was homemade. When she replied that it sure was. He asked if he could have a piece, she said “sure” and he took one from the tray. After they finished their conversation, and she walked away, he bit into the soap and with a strange look on his face said, “she sure make terrible fudge”. As you can imagine my husband and I got a big kick out of this. Suffice it to say that this is a scene I will remember.

Last week it was time to test some of the soap I made in September. I was very curious about one of the soaps as it was a new recipe using aloe. I had talked (blogged) about making it in this post on October 1st. https://donteatitsoaps.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/soap-and-sauce/

When I showered with the aloe soap my first impression was that it felt smooth and had a creamy lather, soothing was the word that came to my mind. I liked it a lot, but I wanted to see if it was really the aloe that seemingly was making a difference in the feel of the soap. It was easy to do this, since when I made this soap I split the batch and added chamomile and lavender to one half and aloe to the other half. The next morning when I showered I took a bar of the chamomile/lavender and a bar of aloe and used each on different sides of my body. I discovered there was definitely a difference. The chamomile/lavender was quick to come to a very bubbly lather. It felt great on the skin and rinsed off well. The aloe had a more creamy and thick lather, again I thought it was soothing, and it too rinsed off well.

Although my impression was that they are both great soaps, I realized that my analysis may be tainted because I knew the ingredients of both. They needed to be tested by people who did not know what is in them. A blind non-taste (don’t eat it!) test. So I recruited two of my regular tester, my husband and my sister. I gave them the two bars without telling them what was in them and asked them to use them and give me their impression of each.

For chamomile/lavender my husband said it had great lather, he described it as pleasant, it cleaned and rinsed well. My sister also commented that it lathered well and was a nice soap.

For aloe my sister said it took longer to lather (I tend to agree) and she described it as a creamy lather. My husband loved the lather of this soap and described it as a “shaving soap”.

When he used that term it was obvious to me that the aloe was making a difference, as aloe is an ingredient often used in shaving creams. He, of course, was right because the next day I used the aloe soap as I shaved my legs and it was very smooth and felt great.  He has not shaved with it yet but is saving it for when he does shave. A couple days later he told me they were great soaps and that I should continue  to make both. I will.