Good Clean Crafting!

Give your family and friends a gift that is always the right size, has no calories, requires no dusting or storage – and is easy on your pocketbook!

I’m talking about homemade soap! It’s an easy, fun project for children and adults and results in an inexpensive, truly unique, and practical, environmentally-friendly gifts.

To get started, you need the following:

All of these products are available commercially at craft stores and department stores with craft areas (like Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and A.C. Moore).

• Glycerin Soap Base (Basic glycerin base is least expensive. For a little more money, you can get a base with olive oil or cocoa butter and make an even richer-feeling soap).
• Soap Mold (you can make your own soap molds with waxed cardboard and aluminum foil, but commercial soap molds are inexpensive and easier to handle for beginners).
• Wire rack or other cooling station (soap likes to “cure” for a week or two, so be sure you won’t need it).

Optional:

• Coloring (you can purchase this commercially or use food coloring or other spices)
• Fragrance (best purchased commercially and used sparingly)
• Additives (spices, oatmeal, small plastic toys for kid soaps)

Directions are on the soap base package, but here’s a quick summary:

1. Melt the soap base – either using a double boiler or the microwave. Takes about 5 minutes for a batch of 10 bars
2. Add any coloring, fragrance or additive to the soap base.
   Here are some fun ideas with items you probably have in your kitchen:
   a. Cinnamon and ground oatmeal
   b. Dried, chopped orange and lemon peels
   c. Ground or crushed sage and basil
   d. Fresh ground coffee
3. Pour the mixture into your soap molds. Let dry overnight. The packages will tell you to let dry for 30 minutes, but I’ve found that overnight is much better and the soap will come out of the molds much easier.
4. Pop your new soap out of the molds and let it sit for at least a week to “cure”.
5. Wrap in plastic wrap and tie groups of soap together with a pretty ribbon and tag!

Cost: Approximately .35 - .85 per bar, depending on your additives. Three to four bars make a lovely gift, at a cost of about $2.00!

The soaps pictured above cost approximately $.65 each. I used olive oil/glycerin soap, store-bought coloring (red/green/lavender); store-bought fragrance; sage (from my spice rack) and bits of dried lemon grass. The batch took approximately 20 minutes to make.

Enjoy!
Leslie G. Hayes
Greenville, SC