There are very few people who don’t enjoy receiving soaps as a gift, especially at the moment when we are encouraged to wash our hands more frequently to keep ourselves and those we love safe. These DIY soaps are so easy and make the perfect gift. No one will ever know how easy they are and a handmade gift is alway the best in my book. You can even tailor them to who you are giving them to with scents etc.
This DIY uses a melt and pour goats milk soap base that I bought from Amazon. Melt and pour means that you won’t have to use any harsh chemicals and the who project only takes a few minutes to put together and about an hour for the soap to set. Perfect!!
To add fragrance to the soaps, I use essential oils which you can buy from a good chemist or online seller. These I bought from Boots, but you can also get oils from Amazon
You will also need a mould to pour your soaps into. You can buy specialty soap moulds or even just silicone cupcake moulds work too. I use a combination of both, but whatever you use for soap making should never be used for food after.
So to start you will need to pop the block of soap base out of the tub and cut it up into chunks. The smaller the chunks, the quicker it will melt. I put the chunks into a glass pyrex jug so it makes pouring a little easier later.
Now place the jug into the microwave and we’re going to heat on full for 30 seconds and stir. Repeat this until the soap is nice and runny with no lumps.
At this point you will need to work fairly quickly as the soap will want to harden as soon as it starts to cool. Add your essential oils into the liquid soap. I use between 20-30 drops depending on how strong I like the soap to smell. Soap tends to need more than you would expect as the scent hides in the soap.
Once the oils are mixed into the soap you need to carefully pour it into the moulds. I tend to put the moulds on a baking tray or chopping board so that I can move them without the silicone wobbling about.
You can leave them out to set or pop them in the fridge for an hour. They should be nice and hard and ready to use by then.
Now comes the fun part. Popping them out of the silicone moulds is so satisfying and then you can decorate them with paper, twine or fabric.
I made some nice peppermint soap so I wrapped it in a candy cane striped fabric tied with a red ribbon. so festive
I for one would be thrilled to get a gift like this for Christmas, or any other time for that matter. Look for interesting moulds and have fun soap making. Its a fun and super quick little project to do.