THE INGREDIENTS
To begin, gather your ingredients. There is no rule that you need to add anything to your melt and pour soap base, technically, but I thought it would be fun to try something interesting.
You can buy bricks of melt and pour soap base at your local Michael's or buy them online. {Bramble Berryis a great soap making supply store, and I plan to use them for my later soap making supply needs.} I bought a brick of goat's milk melt and pour soap base, but there are a wide variety of bases to choose from, including shea butter, aloe vera, olive oil, etc. There are scented and unscented varieties, as well as clear and white colored bases.
Cut up your soap base in cubes and place them in a glass bowl. You can melt your soap base in a double boiler or you can put it in the microwave and heat it for thirty second intervals, stirring between each interval until your base is melted. I used 10 ounces of soap base, and it took about three thirty second intervals {plus stirring} to melt it completely.
I've read that you should cover your glass bowl with saran wrap to help keep in moisture if you warm your base by microwaving it, but I've also seen directions that don't include this step. I did not cover my bowl and it seemed to turn out fine:
Look at that beautiful creamy goodness! What was nice about the soap bricks that I bought was that although they were unscented, they still smelled good--a soapy smell, if you will.
At this point I added some oats to the mix. Oats are used in skin care all the time as a way to soothe the skin, as well as reduce inflammation and heal dry, itchy skin. In soap, they also work as a great exfoliator! Plus, they are totally hypoallergenic.
The soap base I bought is supposed to provide an even suspension of ingredients like oatmeal. If your mixture is too hot, sometimes the oats {or poppy seeds or what have you} can sink to the bottom. This didn't seem to be an issue, but I can't say if that was due to the soap base I was using, it's temperature, or perhaps the weight of the oats themselves {as opposed to that of a heavier ingredient, such as coffee beans, for example}.
Once I added the oats, I added my sweet almond fragrance oil {you can use essential oils as well, but not all essential oils are safe for the skin, so double check this!}, honey {remember how good that is for the skin?}, and the oil of two vitamin e capsules. The honey gives the soap a slightly more creamy color, and I ended up using about 2 tablespoons of it. For the fragrance oil I used 5 drops per ounce of soap base per the directions on the packaging.
From there, I poured my mixture into the clear plastic soap molds I had gotten on sale, a pack of three for $1.50, at Michael's. Let your soaps solidify completely before attempting to remove them from the mold! Your mold should be perfectly cool to the touch--if it's still warm don't risk it!
If you use a plastic or metal mold, you might consider giving the mold a quick squirt of some non-stick spray so your soaps slide out easier when it comes time to take them out of the mold. My soaps were stuck in the mold so good and tight I thought I was going to have to dig soap pieces out in chunks with a spoon! But I got them out eventually :) The trick is to put them in the freezer for several minutes! To avoid the little bubbles that form on the bottom of the soap {i.e. the side you don't see in pictures below} put some rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle and give your soaps a quick spray right after you have put them in their molds.
Ten ounces of soap base gave me three bars of soap. These little beauties were so quick and easy to make, I made two batches for six bars total in less than an hour {not including time for the bars to set}. You can speed along the setting time by sticking them in the fridge on a flat surface. Consider putting a tray underneath your soap mold containers before pouring your soap in to make transporting them to the fridge easier.
These make for great gifts or party favors, like for a baby shower or wedding shower. They would even be a nice fancy touch to a guest bathroom for when you have company over. They look and feel expensive without actually being so, which is always nice :)
I hope you enjoyed this easy soap making tutorial as much as I did! I will definitely be making more soap again soon :) I am going to be concocting new recipes, so be on the lookout for more soap posts soon!
In the meantime, I would love to see your DIY body care recipes and give them a try! I gotta fuel my obsession ;) If you have any posts you'd like to share with me and my readers, be sure to leave a comment below! Or just leave some love if you enjoyed the post :) I love reading your comments!
P.S. I like to link up!
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