How to Make Homemade Soap (the easy soapmaking method!)

I stumbled across soap-making a few years ago when I was looking for easy, inexpensive gift ideas for my family and friends. I have to admit, traditional soap-making still intimidates me. Trying to learn how to make lye was too challenging for me! But melt-and-pour soap is an entirely different story. Of course, the melt-and-pour method may feel like cheating for some, but for me, it's an easy and fun way to make small gifts for my family and friends.

Making my own soap is so easy that I decided to make 30 of them for favors at my sister's bridal shower earlier this year! These were Ocean Breeze scent to match the beachy theme of the bridal shower. I made it easier on myself and did several batches of five or six soaps each time instead of trying to do all 30 at once. Let's take a look at how to make soap without lye!

What You Need to Make Homemade Soap

• Soap molds: There are so many fun options that I had to stop myself from ordering all the cute shapes for my homemade body wash! Silicone is the easiest material to work with because the finished soap will pop right out. But you'll want to put the molds on a cookie sheet before working with them, as full molds tend to be quite bendy.
• Melt and pour soap base: It's tempting to look for the cheapest base you can find, but the base really does make or break the quality of your soap. Everyone loved this goat's milk base, and I've also had good luck with this large block (which made over 40 bars for me!)
• Soap scent: I always recommend choosing a scent designed specifically for soaps because it will last longer. You don't want to give someone a handmade soap, only to find it lost its scent before the recipient had a chance to use it. I like the Eternal Essences brand because the scent lasts and you only need a few drops per batch.
• Soap color: Again, go for something designed specifically for soap-making to ensure it is skin-safe and will last.
• Extra add-ins: This is where you can have some fun! You can add everything from oatmeal, sea salt, or cinnamon to dried flowers, glitter, or coffee grounds for your homemade bubble soap.

How to Melt Soap

It can be hard to figure out how much base you'll need to melt. But I have this set of rectangular molds, and they hold about 4 ounces of soap each (by weight, not fluid ounce). So a one-pound block of soap base will make about four bars of soap in those molds. However, don't stress too much about how much soap base to cut. If you have some left when you are done, you can just let it harden in a spare silicone mold and melt it again next time you make that particular soap recipe.

Learning how to melt soap starts with having a clear workspace with all your ingredients out. Once the soap has melted, you will have a limited amount of time to add your ingredients and pour everything into the mold before the soap starts to harden. My workspace is in my kitchen because I use the microwave to melt the base. I'm not too concerned about using kitchen tools for my soap-making, as everything washes off nice and clean when I'm done. It is soap, after all!

Use a knife to cut your base into smaller pieces, about two to three inch cubes, and place them in a microwave-safe bowl (I like to use a Pyrex 4-cup measuring cup). Once you have cut enough pieces, microwave the base according to the package's directions. I usually start with one minute and then microwave in 30-second bursts, stirring in between each burst. Heating the base for too long at once can cause it to scorch, resulting in a burnt look and smell.

I've found it's best to let the base get nice and hot before moving on to the next steps. If there seems to be a "skin" on top, you're getting close but not quite there. Soap-making also tends to work best when your home is at least 65 degrees or warmer...but maybe that's just my inner frugal self not wanting to turn on the heat, and your home is always a normal temperature in the winter. (:

Adding Your Favorite Homemade Soap Ingredients

The fun part is adding your favorite ingredients! I don't have an exact measurement for the amount of scent to add, but I'll usually add about 12 drops of the Eternal Essences scent per three to four cups of melted base. Of course, some strength varies across scents, so you might need more or less, depending on your chosen scent. Know it tends to smell stronger in a melted base than the finished hand wash, so if it smells just about right to you now, add a few more drops for good measure. On the other hand, if it smells too strong to you now, you are on the right track!

The amount of color is entirely up to whatever looks good when you add it. You can experiment with how much you mix the colors if you want a swirled look. Or you can divide the batch in half and make each half a different color. If you're alternating colors, pour about a teaspoonful of each batch into the mold at a time, alternating colors, for a multi-color look. 

Packaging Your Soaps

You don't have to package your homemade soaps, but I like to make them look nice before I gift them. Soaps made with melt-and-pour soap base have a habit of collecting moisture from the air when it's humid. Depending on the weather, some of my soaps would leave a residue on my hands when I handled them a lot. I decided to prevent this by wrapping them in clear plastic wrap. 

You can still see the design and smell them, but the plastic wrap makes them nicer to touch. I try to wrap them as tightly as possible to minimize wrinkles or bubbles, then I use clear tape on the back to hold the plastic wrap down.

I also like to cut a strip of pretty scrapbook paper to go around each soap. I don't attach it to the bar itself. Instead, I make sure the strip is long enough to glue the ends together in the back. Then I cut a smaller piece of paper in a contrasting color and write the type of soap on it. If you're gifting a set of a few bars, you could also tie them together with a piece of twine or ribbon. This is an especially fun way to package biodegradable soap!

Some of My Favorite Homemade Soap Combinations

There are a lot of soap recipes out there, but here are some of my favorites. Again, I never measure my ingredients, so just add ingredients a little at a time until you are satisfied with the result! These would make for an amazing homemade bubble bath.

• Apple pie soap: Apple scent, vanilla extract, fall soap colors, and cinnamon
• Coffee soap: Coffee scent, neutral soap colors, and coffee grounds
• Ocean scented soap: Ocean scent and soap colors in blues/greens

Have you ever thought about making your own soaps? What are some of your favorite scent combinations?