Coconut oil. Trial and mostly error

I will admit it, I failed miserably at my first two attempts at making coconut oil.
Here is a step by step of what I did and where I went wrong...

Attempt #1
- The first and easiest step for me in making the coconut bowls is having my other half, halve them and take out the coconut meat. I took the left overs from the latest bowl and used them for this first attempt.
- I them broke the meat into small pieces and placed them in the blender with some water. I added the water slowly until it all mixed well.
- Them I poured the coconut awesomeness into a large bowl.
- then I kneaded it for a while. (this got messy)
- I DID NOT THINK AHEAD and had to call for my husband again, and get him to bring me another bowl and a strainer.
- Messy hands and all I squeezed the coconut meat through the strainer into the other bowl. It felt awesome between my fingers!

I think to here I did ok!

Here is where I went wrong....
I put the mess on the stove. Once it was boiling it went CRAZY! I think there was more water in it then I was aware. According to the video I posted last time what I SHOULD have done was let it sit for a while and settle. Then the water would have partially separated from the coconut milk and it would not have boiled so violently. Well I didn't. It overflowed. All over the stove. At this point I decided to stop.

OOPS!

The left over coconut meat

Attempt #2
My thinking was "maybe the whole extracting the coconut milk AND making the oil was too much for the first time, I'll start with my canned coconut milk!"

- Emptied can into pot
- turned on heat
- waiting for a while
- watched it boil
- freaked out that it was taking too long and stopped.

I think I was on the right track and just quit before I was done! I kept the now concentrated coconut oil so I might give it another shot.

I think I am on the right track! 

Directions? Who needs that!?

Coconut oil is awesome! It is amazing for cooking, amazing for my coconuts, and awesome as a beauty project!

I can skim through some sites and videos and figure it out right?

NO!

First attempt ended in a HUGE mess, second? well not so hot either.

Next I am going to follow this video.

I don't even know what I want to do with the oils, I just want to make them!

Oils

For quite a while now I have wanted to make oils. Problem is, when I stop to think about what kind of oils, or what I would use the oils for, I draw a blank. I just want to MAKE oils! I decided to start with something easy. I started with cooking oils. I heard or read somewhere about infused olive oil for cooking and decided to start with that.

I sautéed some peeled garlic and rosemary in olive oil and then poured it into an empty large vodka container that I had washed. I then (mostly) filled the container with our remaining olive oil, and it is currently sitting in my kitchen. My husband does most the cooking, so he will have to give me a review when he uses it. Normally he adds garlic and rosemary to things, so I thought it would be a good combo to start. It in no way looks as pretty as the picture I used but we shall see.

On to other oils. I was looking into base oils for things. What things? I don't know yet! I saw something about using baby oil as a base for massage oils; so I put some in a jar with my dried lemon verbena and some mint. Minty fresh massage oil? I don't know how it is going to turn out yet so we shall see!

I think my aim initially was to make my own essential oils. However, since that requires way more equipment then I have, I think I am going to try other ways to make aromatic oils. I still have no real idea about what I want to do with them, but that is the point right? Don't think about it just do it! Make oils! Figure out what to do with them later!

~Pohaku