Funder and sponsors

BIG thank you to our funder and sponsors. This preliminary study has been made possible thanks to funding from Terre de Femmes. Three sponsors have contributied with valuable equipment. Thank you:

Vetek for the scale, it’s been used a lot!

Clas Ohlson for the thermometers and hot plate, super!

CoolStuff for the solar chargers!

If you want to contribute with funding or suitable equipment don’t hesitate to contact us. We are planning to launch an expanded soap project on the island of Lamu in July-August next year.

Last days of Lamu

The final tuning and right weight of ingredients are now documented for the contiunuation of the soap project. We have a recipe and a fantastic soap.

How ever we could not stop experimenting when we heard from the waiter at Hapa Hapa that natural soda was produced in a lake nearby.

Magadi Soda from the lake Magadi.

 

Finally a breakthrough, we have soap!

When we woke up this morning feeling a bit tired. But, the soap we made last night had the right quality!

Happy sweat shop.

We’ve got soap!

Looks like brie but is actually perfect soap!

More laborations…

To be honest we are getting a bit frustrated with the tests being unsuccessful. It’s like a never ending soap story.

Filtrating some new coco nut oil.

Trying with a mix of coco nut oil and corn oil to see if it works better.

Heating it up.

 

 

Trubble with the lye

After numerous tests we still have no soap. We know from the making of the falafel oil soap that a lot of experiments with finding the right recipe is needed. We guess it’s the natural and old school way of making lye from ashes that is causing troubles in the process. However we don’t give up easily. New and more concentrate lye will be produced this afternoon.

Making lye.

Using the sun to heat up the solution.

Calculating, measuring, weighing… Slow progress.

Making new lye, this time from coconut shells

Trying to make stronger and more concentrated lye using coconut shells this time.

Measuring the pH value and it looks good!

Soap maiking, test 1

The laboratory.

“Safety gear”

Using the sun to make sure both the lye and the oil have the exact same temperature.

Stirring the palm ash lye into the coco nut oil.

Stirring the oil lye solution for 1 hour and 20 minutes in 35 degrees Celsius and the result is, no soap!

Tests.

 

 

Waste

On the way home from town, the dump.

Neighbor with the dump, the cemetery.

Making lye from palm leafs

Jenny collecting firewood, only natural fallen branches from palm trees.

Palm leafs burning, generating the ash, for the lye needed in the soap making.

Collecting white ashes.

Lye job.First test with the lye making. Palm ashes in a cloth bag hanging above hot water.

The coconut oil

The raw material, left over dried coconuts.

The local coconut oil presser Abassi Bakari. The family has used this press from India to press oil for generations.

The leftovers from the oil pressing is used to feed the cows.