The Kudzu Soap Experiment: Background

Kudzu... Anyone who has ever driven around in the south can tell you that kudzu is everywhere down here! It can be seen on roadsides and in fields, covering everything in its path with a mess of vines and leaves and flowers. It suffocates other plants as it crawls over them, and can grow very quickly.

Now, most people that I have spoken with consider kudzu to be a nuisance plant, something that needs to be cut back every now and then... However, when I was a kid visiting my grandparents in northern Mississippi, I learned that people made jelly out of kudzu! As a kid, I thought Wow, how amazing! And as I grew older and grew craftier, I began to rack my brain about how to use this seemingly-useless plant.

And, a few weeks ago, it hit me... SOAP! Kudzu is supposed to have wonderful medicinal properties, and is used frequently in Asia to help with ails, so why cant I use it in soap?

I started off by picking a few vines of kudzu a few weeks before our first frost hit, and I dried them in the darkest part of my closet. Now that they are dry and good and crunchy, I will be grinding them down into a powder to be added in my basic soap base...

Look for pictures coming soon!

Happy Crafting!