How do you clean soap dishes quickly?
Don't make soap.
Seriously, if I do want to make soap, I make cleaning as efficient as possible.
Before deciding to make soap, I plot my use of dishes. I mentally walk through each step, including how I will clean up. This helps me choose what and how many tools and equipment to use. It also helps guide my soap making process.
I make a choice to use more water or more paper towels. I have no idea which is better or worse for the environment. If I wipe my equipment down with a few paper towels to save the use of water is that better or worse? Do I use extra water? Or do I kill a tree? These are big questions.
These are things I ponder before falling asleep.
I weight one against the other and this is what I have decided - wiping my equipment with paper towels before I wash the soap off of the dishes seems like a logical way to move forward and assuage my consciousness of existing. There is a subtle feeling in our world that says, "you lose no matter the choice". I strive to ignore this idea, that my very existence is causing the climate to fail, that every aspect of my life is detrimental to the world.
A very adult fact of life is that if I eat, I will kill something; a planet, the animals that live in the field when the plants are harvested, the animal itself... Directly or indirectly. If I create I will use resources. So, what is the best way forward? How can I carve a path is this world that works for me?
The second my soap is poured and put to bed I wipe all my tools off with paper towels and, some times, with a wash cloth. I do let those set and wash all dishes. This makes for quick cleaning.
I have tried a different process. I left the soap dishes sit with remnants of my soap making endeavors on them until relatively cured. I then washed everything, however that process uses more water than is comfortable. It also, believe it or not, takes more dish washing detergent.
Now, I wipe them off with paper towels when the soap is still wet. All while wearing the same pair of gloves I used to make soap - striving to employ economy of effort.
6 comments
I’m very new to the soaping world! I’m so new I haven’t made the first bar yet. I’m buying up all of the supplies a little bit at a time. But since we are on a septic system my husband is very concerned about me cleaning up after I make soap. I’ve seen what the ladies said about putting their dishes aside for a few days until they go through their soaping phase. Or putting them in a large trash bag, and waiting a few days to clean them. Does that mean that all of the lye is gone, and the bugs in my septic system won’t be destroyed? I have the best husband in the world who treats me well. I really don’t want to upset him! LOL! 🥰 Thank You for any feedback or advice!
I bought a big bag of bar mop towels. Using these during the making and cleaning processes. I wipe all surfaces, then let soap saponify on those towels. I wash towels at laundromat as I’m on septic and cannot have too much sudsys going down the drains. Also why I don’t wash the dishes before saponification. In warmer months, dishes washed outside in yard first.
Dishes go in large trash bag for at least 2 days, place in sink fill with warm water then set for a few hours or sometimes over night then wash. I wash with the water they soaked in.
My friends, because it’s not soap yet, it’s the oils.
I’m an OCD clean-as-you-go person. This can be bad (soap could become a super thick trace, harder, less fluid) or good (waiting for soap to become piping consistency). If I clean as I go, I have less to do at the end. If I wait until the end, my batter can be fluid and easy to make designs with. I hate to use paper towels but they do work great. Jen from A&NSuds-n-Such uses bamboo rewashable towels but I can’t find them. Are they worth the value? So, I’m like you-what to do?? I usually put them in the sink and fill them up with water to get all of the remaining soap softened. What do y’all think? Hugz, Tree