Making your own soap is a lot easier than you may think. The best way to get started making soap is to use a melt and pour soap base. These bases come in a lot of varieties like shea butter, oatmeal, goat's milk & more and and as the name suggest, you simply melt down the base, combine it with any additives you may want to use and pour it into your mold and BOOM once the base has cooled you have your very own custom soap to use, sell or gift to family and friends.
Today I am going to share with you how you can make a Lavender Shea Butter soap. This recipe is great for beginners as there aren't a lot of steps but it still looks impressive enough to wow your friends and family:). I chose lavender essential oil for this soap for it's relaxing and calming properties but you can change out the essential oil for another one if you prefer.
For this soap you will need:
To Make:
Melt your 8oz of shea butter melt and pour in the microwave in 30 second intervals until completely melted. If you prefer not to use the microwave a double boiler can also be used to melt the base.
Next add in your essential oils, stir to combine and then pour your melted base into a silicone mold.
Now take your soap colorant, I suggest dispersing it in isopropyl alcohol for liquid or mica colorants) and place it in a pipette. You will then take the pipette and stick it in to your soap batter and squeeze out a few drops throughout the batter(watch the video below to see this in action). This will give your soap a marbled look.
Next, as an added touch, add a few lavender buds down one side of your soap.
Allow soap to cool for 4-6 hours before removing from your mold.
Now your soap is ready to use. I suggest shrink wrapping or wrapping your bars securely in plastic wrap until you are ready to use them. Melt and pour soap can sometimes sweat when exposed to the air for too long depending on your climate and the shrink wrap will prevent this from happening. The sweating does not harm the soap in any way but aesthetically your soap won't look as nice if it does sweat. If you do see sweat(also known as glycerin dew) starting to form on your soap bars you can spray them with isopropyl alcohol to help get rid of the sweat.
Now that you know how easy it is to make your own soap I hope you give this recipe a try! If you do, let me know how you liked it in the comments.
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