Clean and natural

Our class was shredding yucca leaves and making it into soap down by the river. We were rubbing the wet leaves between our hands and producing a thick, frothy soap. When done, Pascal Baudar smiled and said he had a surprise to show us. From his pack he produced some blocks that at first looked like cheese of various colors.

“I've been learning how to make traditional soap,” he said, passing out the pieces for each of us to smell and try. Indeed, these were beautiful and fragrant. I was most impressed with the mottled brown block of soap made from the desert creosote bush (perhaps the most common high desert plant) with its unique strong aroma. Creosote has long been used by desert Indian — they made a tea that was used for stomach troubles and the leaves were used to treat chest complaints and as a wash for skin problems such as psoriasis.

Everyone crowded around looking at the soap and began asking questions: “Why did you start making soap?” “How did you go about it?” “Are you going to do it for a business?”

Pascal smiled as we looked at his soaps and smelled them. “No,” he said, “I'm not going into the soap business,” but now that he has created such unique soaps he plans to make more in the future for his friends, and to incorporate what he has learned into his classes. Pascal currently teaches what he calls Urban Outdoor Skills, applying outdoor and wilderness skills to city life. His classes include solar cooking, soap-making, how to make gourmet dishes using wild food and urban disaster preparedness.

Pascal grew up in the Belgian countryside and spent most of his youth in the woods. He was always interested in learning about wild foods and plants. Now living in California, he took some desert survival skills classes about seven years ago that introduced him to many desert plants and their uses for food and medicine. “That really got me interested again,” and he’s learned a lot about the local flora in the past two years.

Pascal adds that his general interest in natural self-reliance has led him to discover more about soap.
“One aspect of a more natural self-reliance is hygiene,” he explained. “And what is currently sold as ‘hygiene’ products — such as soap, shampoo, and laundry detergents — all include a long list of chemicals, if you look at the labels. So I started to do research on how one would go about it using local resources to create something more natural.”

Pascal began with research and experiments on medieval and colonial soap-making, reading old books on the subject. This involved using completely natural elements, such as ashes and animal fat. “Colonial soap-making was much more an art than a science,” he says. Colonial soap was very soft, brown jelly-like substance, and salt was added to make it hard, making it, in Pascal's experience, sometimes unsuitable for personal hygiene, but OK for laundry.

Late last year Pascal decided to take a look at the subject again. His goal was simple: learn to create soap with the most natural ingredients possible that were available in his immediate environment.
Two basic elements are needed for soap-making: Lye (a strong caustic alkaline solution of potassium salts which originally was obtained by leaching wood ashes) and fat, such as animal fat or vegetable oil. Using specific formulas, the lye and fat, mixed together set off a process called saponification (conversion into soap).

Pascal experimented until he got his formula just right. Currently, his soaps are made of 100 percent organic oils, such as olive oil, coconut oil and shea butter.

The inclusion of wild plants made his soap formulas unique. Pascal points out that in the hills around Los Angeles, you find a lot of aromatic plants such as California sage, white sage, pine and eucalyptus (and, in the high desert, the aforementioned creosote bush).

He’s also made some interesting discoveries along the way. For example, when he made soap with the California sagebrush, the soap maintained the fragrance of the plant, but the soap did not have the soft green of the sagebrush. Rather, it had a red color, much like the soil it grows in.

“My interest is mostly with wild native plants for several reasons; they are the most readily available in our environment, and I’m personally fond of specific natural fragrances such as sage and creosote. Plus, there is something quasi-spiritual in being able to use the wilderness bounty in your daily life.

Living in the city, it creates a feeling of inner balance between the manmade world and the natural world. It makes me feel more complete — it’s probably because city dwellers have a deep desire to connect with the beauty and bounty of the wilderness.”

To learn more, contact Pascal at Pascal@UrbanOutdoorSkills.com., or visit his Web site at UrbanOutdoorSkills.com..

Christopher Nyerges is the editor of Wilderness Way magazine, author of “How to Survive Anywhere” and a wilderness instructor. Contact him at ChristopherNyerges.com.