Very rarely am I actually able to visit home for an extended period of time, so when I do, I like to make the most of it. This go around, I wanted to take a little time out of the day to do a special craft with my little sister, Jaye! Together we made two different kinds homemade soaps for our mom- both lavender and honey-oat bars of soap. Jaye even helped me take the photos for this blog! :)
Step one when making your own soap is to know what your desires are before you begin. Different ingredients create different effects and knowing what you want out of your soap is the first place to begin looking. We wanted to make two different kinds of soaps that were both soothing on the skin and not too overpoweringly fragrant. Lavender is a scent regularly used in our home, so that was our first choice; not only is it soothing on the skin, but it's relaxing qualities make it the perfect fit for a night-time soak in the tub. Secondly, we chose to create a soap out of honey and oats. Honey is moisturizing on the skin while the oats exfoliate; this soap will leave your skin feeling revitalized and fresh.
After you've decided what kind of soaps you want to make and gathered your ingredients, it's a pretty simple process. Because we bought prepackaged and meltable goat's milk soap from the store, all we really had to do was melt down the base and add the extras! It is important to note, though, that we specifically bought a soap base with suspending ability. This means that when you mix in things such as lavender flowers and oats, they will suspend throughout the entire soap base and not all sink to the bottom.
We dripped into the melted soap base lavender essential oil and mixed lavender flowers (simply for aesthetics) for the lavender soap and mixed in honey and dried oats for the honey-oat soap. After this, you just pour the (very hot) liquid soap into whatever mold you want your soap to dry in. We chose to use little aluminum containers because we wanted the soap to be long and rectangular; the aluminum containers are just what we found and they worked perfectly! Not to mention they were very cheap- much cheaper than a silicone mold.
Let your newly created soap bars settle over-night and after that, they're ready to use!
I had a blast making these soaps with Jaye and I know she had a lot of fun too! Thought the craft was a simple one, the memories we made while making these soaps is something I will cherish forever. Next on the agenda is to make our own scented candles!
XO,
Bec
Comments