Soap Making
Gift giving is a love of mine, especially in the Month of May. First, we have Mother’s Day (one of my favorite days), my anniversary, my son’s birthday, and graduation for many loved ones. May is full of celebrations at our house. I really love to make Mother’s Day a personal day with my Mom and my daughters. Now that we live further away I’ve been pondering what to send these beautiful women in my life. While pondering I remembered an amazing episode of Martha Stewart, about fifteen years ago, and Martha was making homemade soap and lip balm. I was glued to my TV set and writing down notes frantically so that I would remember every detail. At the time, I also received Martha’s magazine every month in the mail and the next month there was an article about the soaps and a phone number to order glycerin, dyes, shea butter, dried flowers, coco butter, oils, and beautifully shaped molds for soap making. Needless to say I ordered the entire kit!
My tween daughter and I dug out my kit and she was even more excited about it than I was 15 years ago! So, we got out the instructions and soap molds and started experimenting with soap. I mentioned it to Janine and she and I have been playing with soap now too. We’ve made lavender soap (which is my favorite), lemon soap and rose peppermint and WOW does the kitchen smell amazing!
Now, if I can make these from scratch I know you can do it even better. The instructions are pretty simple and nearly fool proof. It’s like being a mad scientist in your kitchen and you just add a little of this and a little of that and magic happens, it’s all good clean fun. Did you catch that? It was a soap pun. 😉
Making soap is a pretty simple process, you just need some basic ingredients:
soap making glycerin
soap molds or tins, here is a link on Amazon: Soap kit (this kit contains molds and glycerin)
liquid measuring cups – I use a 4 cup pyrex
sauce pot
spoon
pairing knife
dyes
essential oils, my personal favorite is doTerra, Here is link on Amazon: essential oils
dried flowers, seeds, oatmeal or loofa
skewers or toothpicks
1) Cut up glycerin and put it in your liquid measuring cup, place the measuring cup in a saucepan with hot water, double boiler style (you can also microwave this step, but I appreciate the stirring and watching of this melting process).
2) When the glycerin is melted add your dye, a little at a time, (I like to use a wooden skewer) you can always add color, but it’s harder to take color out, so add a little at a time. mix in your essential oils and dried flowers or seeds, stir.
3) Coat your molds lightly with a non-stick spray or petroleum jelly (i like olive oil spray)
4) Once your glycerin mixture is melted, mixed and stirred pour it into the molds and place in your refrigerator, wait about 1-2 hours and squeeze the molds to release your soaps (if you use tin molds, put the mixture in the freezer)
You can always add shea butter, jojoba, coco butter, and other skin softening ingredients. It’s fun to play with colors and scents too. Each soap becomes unique!
I made my Mom a beautiful bunch of soaps from my lavender growing in my yard. They smell lovely and I added a tiny drop of violet dye to compliment the lavender smell. I know she will love them. To all you mothers and daughters, have a lovely and relaxing Mother’s Day weekend. We would love to hear from you, so share a special thing you do with your mom or something your kids do for you!
Cheers,
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Colette Joseph
Some of these look good enough to eat!
I missed this post for Mother's Day, but luckily my mom's bday is coming up and she'd love these!
Marci
Colette! They do look good enough to eat. Janine said the same thing. I hope you get a chance to make some. I'm definitely going to make more. There are lots of different recipes that I would like to try. 😀