My Quest for the Perfect Baby Soap Recipe

I started making soap a little over a year ago. I can't explain how much I enjoy the process, not to mention the outcome! My new grandson is due to arrive in March so of course I have been searching the web over for the perfect baby soap recipe. As usual, I couldn't find exactly what I wanted, so I created my own. It's called Emu Baby Soap. My first try at making this soap was a complete disaster! To start off, I wanted rice water for my lye solution. The directions for this, that I had read, called for 1 liter of water and 2 Tblsp of white rice. I of course had to have jasmine rice, plain old white rice wouldn't do for my precious new grandson. That was fine, but when I decided that if 2 Tblsp was great then 4-5 Tblsp would be fantastic, things started going downhill. I boiled the water, added the rice and simmered for 45 minutes. When the buzzer went off, I was left with water and mushed rice. I strained it, but unfortunately the rice was so cooked down that it stayed with the water. I thought, wonderful, it will be all the richer! So I cooled it, then went about melting my fats. As soon as the solution was cold, I added my lye.......don't ever do this....it turned to smelly, hot gel. Lye rice gel, yum. I stood there wondering what to do??? I ended up dumping this disaster and starting the lye solution over with plain water. Everything went smoothly until the soap came to light trace and I added the emu oil and cornstarch...the cornstarch was lumpy (of course) and I panicked. Luckily, the soap didn't seize and I was able to incorporate the cornstarch completely and pour it into the mold without incident. I then celebrated briefly, doing the happy soap dance, which never fails to amaze my husband (he definitely doesn't understand, but he is very supportive). Anyway, I started cleaning up my equipment when to my horror, I discovered that one of my candy thermometers was broken!!! I had no way of knowing if any glass ended up in the soap...so I had to do the unthinkable... throw away my first batch of Emu Baby Soap. How very sad this day turned out. Not to worry, my second attempt was right around the corner!