Soap Recipes and Ideas
Once you've discovered the art of making your own soap at home, there is then no end to what you can create! Just by using your imagination, or using whatever is in season at any particular time can inspire you! You will find lots of soap recipes and ideas here! For instance, I made a lovely batch of pale lilac coloured soap, finished with some dried Wisteria petals because that was what I had flowering abundantly in the garden! I actually scented it with Rose and Orange essential oil as Wisteria is hard to replicate! I gave them away as gifts, but unfortunately didn't take any photos, so will have to make another batch to show here, when the Wisteria flowers again! Lavender Soap
You can do exactly the same thing with Lavender if you have some growing in your garden, just dry the flower heads for a couple of days (tie them together and hang them upside down) and use Lavender essential oil; your home will smell fabulous from the drying process and the soap will be popular with everyone you know! You can spread the flowers throughout the soap or just place them, crumbled, at the top like I have.
Other plants to try are Mint and Rose, just use corresponding essential oils.
Peppermint Ice Soap
Using the basic melt and pour recipe, you will also need:
48oz. of soap base
Blue colourant / Mica
White pearlescent colour / Mica
Peppermint essence or essential oil
A basic soap mould - usually makes 12x4 oz. bars
Instructions:
Take 4 oz of the soap base and melt it, add a few drops of blue colourant to create a dark, sapphire blue. Stir gently and pour into the mould.
Using 12 oz of soap base, melt it and add 1/4 teaspoon of white pearlescent. Stir well, pour into the mould and let both the white and blue bars cool.
What we're going to achieve is an opaque soap embedded with strips of blue and white, so, take the blue and white soaps when they are cool and cut into long thin strips, with a knife rather than a shredder or mandolin.
Divide up the blue and pearlescent slivers into your soap mould cavities - I like to keep them going mostly the same direction.
Using the remaining soap base, approx 32 oz, melt it down. Add peppermint fragrance and stir well, and gently pour this last section of soap into the moulds containing the blue and white icicle strips. Tap the mould gently on the counter top to get rid of any air bubbles, and allow to cool.
Berry Mint Foot Soap Recipe
A wonderful, exfoliating soap for dry feet. Ingredients:
9 oz. melt & pour base
3/4 tsp. 250 IU vitamin E oil
1/4 tsp. raspberry seeds
1/4 tsp. blueberry seeds
Raspberry fragrance oil
Blueberry fragrance oil
Peppermint essential oil
Green Colourant / Mica
Instructions:
Melt soap base in a double boiler or in the microwave. When melted, remove from heat. Stir in the Vitamin E oil. Add the desired amount of fragrance and essential oils. Add the dye 1 drop at a time until soap is light green. Add the berry seeds and stir. Pour into moulds. Let it harden. When I made this one I used empty (washed!) Pringles cartons, as they make a pillar-shaped candle which I then cut into discs, to make them very easy to use! Chocolate Chip Cookie Soap Recipe
Soap that looks like cookies! This is a favourite of mine. These turn out very well! Ingredients:
1 lb white or clear coconut melt and pour base
Cocoa powder or brown pigment
1 lb cocoa butter
Brown colourant / Mica
Small round soap moulds
Instructions:
Melt the cocoa butter with most of the white or clear base, leaving a little behind. I use white and add a little cocoa powder to it to get it a very soft brown.
Keep melted, although you can allow it to cool slightly. As it does add the colourant.
Melt the leftover soap quickly and add a dark brown dye or a good amount of cocoa powder to make it a much deeper colour than the first batch.
Lay this soap (the dark batch) out over a wax paper lined plate to become tacky.
When the soap has become harder (this is a small amount of soap and does not take long), pick off a few chunks (these will be your chips) and line them at the bottom of the soap moulds.
Spritz very lightly with alcohol if desired.
Now add the cooled but semi liquid big batch over the hard chips.Let sit for a few minutes to continue forming skin.
After the top layer of skin is formed (the soap showing from the mould), add some more of the leftover chips to this part to make the cookie appear as it has chips all over.
You can also drop a chip or two in to blend in and be more natural appearing when combining the soaps.
The cocoa butter gives the soap it's own scent, as does the cocoa powder, and it looks just like a little wax cookie. The lather is bubbly brown and very luxurious! Luxury Facial Bar
This is a great facial bar to use, with luxurious oils and lots of Vitamin E to make skin feel nurtured and young again. Ingredients:
1 lb rosehip & jojoba melt & pour base
2 tsp French green or Moroccan red clay
1/2 tsp of avocado oil
1/2 tsp of apricot or peach kernel oil
1/2 ounce fragrance or essential oil
Instructions:
Melt the soap base over a double boiler or in the microwave. Add the fragrance and set aside. Blend the clay into slightly warmed avocado and apricot kernel oils. Add this to the slightly cooled soap base so it suspends in the base. Pour into soap moulds.
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