Birthday Favors: Home-made Breastmilk Soap

Luna's birthday favors were soap.  Boring, right?  I know.  But these soaps were quite special. They were handmade soap with a special ingredient.  The special ingredient was my breastmilk. Yeah, you read that right. BREASTMILK.  Before you get all disgusted, think about this, Dove soap has milk in it.  It comes from the cow's breast.  Technically, they are called udders, but they do the same thing that human breasts do--it feeds baby cows (and humans of all ages too). They're called udders for the same reason that cow meat is called beef instead of cow milk. It's so that you would separate the image of a cow from the beef that you are consuming, or any other dairy product.  So yeah, if you have a problem with my breastmilk soap, you can stop reading my blog from now on.

Ok, so now that my rant is out of the way, I can get started on this post. I pumped milk since day one of Luna's life til about five months. I brought all the milk that I pumped back in California to Korea (though most of them melted due to my memory problems) and pumped some more here.  In five months, I accumulated a giant stash of milk.  I pumped so that if I ever ran out of milk, I had something to fall back on.  Well, I have never run out of milk and Luna did not ever take a bottle so I had all this breastmilk sitting in my freezer.  Then just before summer, one of my ajumma friends asked me very hesitantly if I had breastmilk to spare to add to her batch of soap making.  Oh was I glad to hear that! Breastmilk has so many benefits for the baby in terms of nutrition, but breastmilk is like the Windex to Mr. Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  It has healing capabilities and is also good for your skin.  Milk in general is good for your skin; that's why Dove makes soap with cow's milk in it.  But more than the benefits of breastmilk to your skin, I was just really glad that all that work I put into pumping would be put to use instead of down the drain, literally.  I even held onto the once melted breastmilk from the flight because I couldn't bear to put it down the drain.  If you don't have a baby yet and/or have not breastfed, you won't understand how important this pumped milk is, but let me try to explain anyway.  

Babies feed every two hours starting on the second day into this world.  Every two hours, all freakin day, and every three to four hours all freakin night.  If you pump, then that means, after feeding every two hours during the day and every three to four hours during the night, you pump for an additional 15 minutes for both breasts.  You do this if you're going to be going back to work (to build up a stash) or to increase your milk supply.  If you pump, that also means that you have to wash your pump parts.  Washing the tiny little crevices or each tiny little part every time you pump.  You also have to sterilize all parts every couple days.  Obviously, you would go bonkers if you actually pumped after every feeding because that's like ten times a day you are hooked up to a machine that makes a weird noise and you get to be dairy farm.  BUT, if you're not producing enough milk to feed your young and you're really really determined to breastfeed, then you're probably trying to pump that much while losing sleep in the process.  It really is a wonder that more women don't have postpartum depression.  The five ounces of pumped milk (I say five because that's usually how much I pumped at one sitting) is the result of hours put into washing and preparing the parts, waking up every three hours even though the baby slept through the night, lost sleep, and tears from being so tired and stressed.  Oh, and when you accidentally knock over that open bottle spilling two ounces?  It's DEFINITELY something to cry over.  And don't get me started on all the pain you go through with clogged ducts, mastitis, engorgement, babies biting, and whatnot. So, when you have once-melted milk sitting in front of you and know that you will have to throw it away, it makes perfect sense to put it back into the freezer to throw it away six months later instead.  

Now, when my friend asked me for breastmilk, I was so so freakin happy to be able to give her my once-melted milk.  Afterall, it wasn't bad.  It just couldn't be consumed by the baby that's all.  And the soap?  It turned out perfect. 

I still had like 300 ounces of breastmilk sitting in my freezer when we started planning for Luna's birthday.  I am totally for giving practical party favors, so we opted to give out breastmilk soap.  Two birds with one stone, you know?  My friend made 160 bars of soap out of like 50 ounces.  It's too bad I didn't get a picture of the giant pile of soap when she gave them to me.  The soap were of different colors too.  There were green ones, brown ones, orange ones, and others.  They all contained different ingredients.  It was awesome. 

The soap was wrapped in saran wrap.  I didn't do it.  The friend did it, along with the labels.  I couldn't undo the wrap because she put so much work into wrapping them.  I bought the boxes, stuffing, purple wrapping paper, and the ribbons.  I looked around Namdaemun for boxes and found one store that sold boxes specifically made for soap.  They were 1000 won each and came in packs of ten.  I didn't want to spend 80,000 won on soap boxes and I didn't like the colors. This is their site.  I ended up buying boxes from this site because it was so cheap.  Unfortunately, it looks like they do not sell them anymore.  I think I paid like 22,000 won for 80 boxes.  I bought the ribbon at Dongdaemun for 13,000 won before I bought the wrapping paper so I was limited in what wrapping paper I could get.  I should have waited to buy the ribbon but it all turned out well so it's ok.  I bought the wrapping paper and stuffing(6000 won) at another trip to Namdaemun, but they do have a website here.  I'm one of those people who have to touch and feel before buying and especially since I had to match the ribbon to the paper, I did not purchase online.  The paper I bought was pretty thick.  They come in bundles of ten sheets and I think I paid 600 won per sheet.  I still have two sheets left.  The little thank you picture note thingy was made by yours truly and printed on 3x5 photos at the local film place for 9000 won (300 won per sheet with two pictures on a sheet.  I only had 60 pictures because I wasn't expecting more than 60 guests). So altogether, Luna's birthday favors cost about 56,000 won (The soap was made as a gift).  

Not bad.  Not bad at all. 

(I love shopping for deals :)


Luna recently learned to crawl backwards.  That means that she knows how to get off the bed now.  dun dun dun.... So now, I really need to reorganize the bedroom so that Luna can't get into things she shouldn't be getting into.  Knowing how to get off the bed also means that she has a bit more independence.  To foster that independence, I rearranged the baby fence so that she can now leave the bedroom to go to the living room where all her toys are.  She's also figured out that she can use her booster chair (which is on the floor) as a step to climb up to the couch.  We tried to keep her from figuring that out by not leaving the chair next to the couch, but someone must've forgotten and put the chair next to the couch.  Good timing though, because now she uses her other newly acquired skill to come down the couch as well.  This is all within a week!  Now, she preoccupies herself by climbing up the couch from one end, scooting down to the other end of the couch to come down and then go back to the booster chair to get back on the couch.  I love the self-playing!

 She's entertaining herself with her box of diapers (it's not 김 inside).

I've been reading up on Montessori education as of late.  Well, it's more like I've been following this woman's blog on how she does Montessori at home in daily life.  I'm loving it.  But I'm just totally blown away by what her little son can do by himself because she taught him to do it.  It is truly empowering when you can do things for yourself, isn't it?  That's why I rearranged the fence so that I can empower Luna to do things on her own when she is completely capable of doing it.  I won't be expecting her to pour herself a glass of water or sort her trash into compost and recyclables just quite yet.  I don't want to unleash the tiger mom within me. Here's the blog I've been following: howwemontessori

I really like the blog because it gives me ideas for what I can do at home with Luna and for things that I can make for her to play with and do.  I'm not about teaching her the Montessori ways and using the Montessori materials.  I just like her philosophy and feel that I can incorporate her philosophy into everyday life and live the Montessori way where Luna will be empowered to do and be all that she can be. 

Next up: Diaper stripping, Winter holiday