Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Chico Needs Your Help



Living on an island can be tough on a dog, sometimes it's hard to find life's essentials out here on "the chain". Chico likes to make soap and has a new idea for the next batch incorporating seaweed collected on the spit enclosing Dutch Harbor. He has all the ingredients he needs except he is low on lye . . . . you see, lye is tougher to find than it used to be because lye is also a primary ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine. One look at that face and I think it is plain to see Chico does not manufacture meth - he makes soap, pretty good soap actually.

So my little web surfing minions, here is Chico's offer . . . . the person to come up with a source for lye (must be 100% lye, must be in a 16 ounce container like the one pictured - maximun of 32 ounce containers as lye cakes up when exposed to humidity so smaller is better when it comes to storage) that will ship through the postal service, either parcel post or priority mail, to Unalaska, will be rewarded with a few bars of Chico's soap and the pictured Unalaska Fire Department tee-shirt, new, size medium, for their efforts. In cases of multiple sources, the one with the best price will be the winner.

This has to be a place that will be around for the future, not a one shot deal, because Chico is planning on making more soap as he perfects his recipies. As a matter of reference, you can normally buy one pound of lye at an Ace Hardware store for about $3 to $4 bucks. It can be either a bricks and mortar store or strictly web-based but they must be set up to ship through the postal service - UPS or Fedex just isn't cost effective to the island.

Don't let Chico down - look into those eyes and see if you can make him happy. Chico is so very busy these days, it's tough for him to find the time to track down sources with our slow web connection - help him out! Email your sources to me and I'll pass them on to Chico - the best verified source by midnight (Alaska Standard Time) on Friday gets the goods!

6 comments:

ThatsLikeWhen said...

http://www.lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=619&itemType=PRODUCT&iProductID=619
Lehman's has some good resources and prices.

So does Camden Grey. http://www.bestdeal.org/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?affiliate=candlesoap&Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=Essential&Category_Code=277

The article I found the links in is here: http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/coldprocesssoapmaking/a/lyesources.htm

Hope this helps.

Jennifer
thatslikewhen @ yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

I'll be checking prices here in Paradise- I would love to have some of Chico's Seaweed Soap! :)

Anonymous said...

I think Ebay has everything you
might need. Just type in Lye.

Alaska Steve said...

Woww, you guys are quick! Anyone else have any ideas - these look good but I'll consider all sources through Friday night, then I have to get some lye coming - and I'll mail out the t-shirt and some soap to someone . . .

ThatsLikeWhen said...

I just got the box of soap and goodies! Thank you so much for sending it to me, the soap smells wonderful. I'm going to test it out tomorrow morning:)

Alaska Steve said...

Glad you liked it - the citrus batch actually didn't come out like I wanted but with a good reliable lye source now I can get started on that seaweed soap I want to make - thanks Jen!