You might want to make your own homemade soap because you want to avoid certain ingredients in store-bought soap, or because it saves money, or just for the fun of mixing your own scents and molding them into decorative shapes.
Making soap from scratch isn’t a simple process, and you will need to be careful with some ingredients. Make sure you understand the dangers and how to avoid them before you start.
Soap making methods
You can start with “rebatching” your own soap, using another soap (like Ivory, which already has the lye) as a base. Start with a smallish batch of homemade soap right in your blender, following the instructions here. You can also make liquid soap in a blender.
Whatever method you choose, here’s where it gets fun: the soap recipes. You can get very creative with the ingredients. Anything you want to use for scent is fine, but you can also put in ingredients like milk and honey or coffee grinds (great for exfoliation). You may also want to be aware of how certain oils help your skin.
Soap Making Gear
If you’re totally new to making handmade soap, you may want to start off with a soap making kit. They make everything simple and self-contained. If you’d rather learn from scratch, you’ll need:
- Lye. Unless you plan on never using lye based soap recipes.
- Or you could use a melt and pour soap base, like oatmeal, goats’ milk glycerine or shea butter.
- Liquid Colors. Add a few drops of these to your bars to change their color.
- Soap Molds. You can get these in so many different shapes and patterns. It’s a really fun way to make your soaps even more personal – especially if you’re gifting them.
- Soap Cutters. If you prefer to make one big block of soap and then cut it into bars, soap cutters are the tool for you.
Gifting Homemade Soap
If you’re planning to make natural soap as a gift for friends or family, consider pairing soaps with dishes. This handmade dark pine soap dish looks beautiful with any bar or decorative soap.
So do these brightly colored double dishes designed to catch all the dripping soap. Or you can go with much, much fancier soap dishes. You can also find soap dishes shaped like turtles.
Another option instead of dishes is fingertip towels. These can be really gorgeous and useful.
These beautiful little kraft paper gift boxes with hemp cords are perfect for gifting soap bars and smaller decorative soaps.
If you enjoy making your own soap, you might want to learn how to make glue at home!
Recipes for homemade soap
The following DIY soap recipes vary in difficulty. Not all of them use lye. Some of them are simple re-batching or “melt and pour” recipes which are more suitable if you want to keep it simple.
1. Lavender and Oats Goat Milk Soap Recipe. Not only is goat’s milk supposed to be great for skin, but this recipe also includes shea butter, plus oats for exfoliation.
2. Chai Latte Love soap. With vegetable oils and fragrance oils, this soap can be poured into cups and made to look like adorable actual chai lattes being served.
3. Pumpkin Soap Recipe. Featuring olive, sunflower and coconut oils, blended with actual pumpkin and essential oils.
4. Pure Coconut Oil Soap. A simple soap recipe with a moisturizing version for skin and a more drying version that’s right for laundry.
5. Cucumber soap. Cucumber is actually an astringent. This recipe harnesses its supposed curative properties along with its wonderful scent.
6. Spoon Swirl Soap. A beautiful, multi-colored soap made with the room temperature method, using oxides, mica and cocoa powder to get its striking appearance.
7. Charcoal Facial bar. A black bar of soap featuring charcoal, which is used in some high-end cleansers because it’s so good at clearing out pores. This is a very sudsy soap even though it contains several oils.
8. Vegan Lavender soap. Made from olive oil and palm kernel oil (see this comment on why palm kernel oil might not be such an animal-friendly choice) instead of animal fat, with the relaxing fragrance of lavender.
9. Lollipop soap. Terrific for kids or as a party favor. Yes, it’s soap on a lollipop stick.
10. Chocolate soap. You’ll find a variety of chocolate soap recipes there, and some are vegan. Some add flavors like orange or vanilla.
11. Coffee and Cream soap. This recipe is melt and pour, and also contains no lye. Very easy for beginners or even supervised kids.
12. Apple Tart soap. Another easy melt and pour recipe,. Red and apple-scented.
13. Oatmeal soap. I love oatmeal soap for my sensitive skin. This recipe is so simple: Dove + oatmeal = whole new soap.
14. Spicy Tea Glycerin soap. Add tea and dried flowers to boring bars of glycerin soap.
15. Hand-milled sage soap. A lye-free recipe that gives you a deliciously scented soap.
16. Avocado oil soap. Just what it sounds like. Avocado is awesome for all types of skin.
17. Fresh Ginger soap. Not only a great recipe but a tutorial on using fresh ginger in soaps.
Creating your own
Making soap at home can be a very fun and rewarding hobby. Once you’ve made a few batches from recipes, you get a feel for how it’s done and then you can create your own recipes. Decorative bars can be great as gifts, too (and much less expensive, and more thoughtful, than pretty bars from stores).
Jeanee says
November 4, 2011 at 12:09 pmLove your recipes. I shared them on my blog today!
http://blog.shopdirtylaundry.com/posts/2011/11/4/36-the-dirty.html
Enjoy…
SnappyLiving says
November 4, 2011 at 4:21 pmThank you! :)
David P. says
December 28, 2011 at 11:32 pmNice recipes, but just to let you know, palm kernel oil is probably even more destructive to animals than just using animal fat – the land where it is grown is illegaly cut down rainforest in Indonesia, resulting in the extinction of many important and iconic animals. (Tigers and Orang-Utans, to name 2 well known ones, not to mention the many kinds of insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds etc. that share their homes)
sandy says
April 25, 2012 at 3:47 amPalm kernel oil is not the same thing as palm oil which is what you are referring to with regard to the depletion of rainforests. And most of us who do use palm oil in our soaps are careful to buy sustainable palm which is obtained without destroying precious animal habitat. Definitely good to be conscious of where our ingredients come from.
liz says
April 22, 2013 at 2:28 pmActually, Sandy, while palm oil is different from palm kernel, they both come from the SAME TREE! Palm oil is from the fruit, palm kernel is from the kernel (inside the fruit). So David P is correct in his assessment.
It is far more sustainable to use a product that would otherwise be wasted (animal fats) than to deplete our earth’s rainforests of resources and driving endangered species into extinction.
amber says
February 23, 2012 at 12:33 pm<3
Liz says
March 12, 2012 at 2:34 pmI’m allergic to coconut–can you recommend any alternatives to use in soaps?
TIA! :)
SnappyLiving says
March 12, 2012 at 6:08 pmBasically, any vegetable oil might make a good substitute for coconut oil. Olive oil and palm oil should both work, but I’m thinking avocado oil might be the most similar in texture to coconut oil – it’s got that creamy, slippery feeling.
Cameron says
April 20, 2012 at 9:35 pmHow long do the soaps have to sit before use if using lye?
SnappyLiving says
April 21, 2012 at 7:39 amRead the very first link in the article – it explains everything you need to know.
Sophia Marie says
December 31, 2012 at 4:35 pmSoap bars must cure for 3 – 4 weeks before use.
Dee says
June 20, 2012 at 4:22 amI love making soap. Thanks for giving me some additional recipe ideas. Coconut oil adds suds to your soap. If you delete it you won’t get as many bubbles. But that’s fine because bubbles don’t determine how well the soap cleans. We are just programmed to think they do. Thanks again. Dee
Loretta says
July 30, 2012 at 5:17 pmIvory and dove are not soap, they are detergents. They contain a lot of chemicals with questionable affects. Dressing them up in a rematch doesn’t undo the bad for you stuff. Stick with sls free all natural soap if you want to treat the skin, largest organ on your body nicely.
J. says
December 12, 2012 at 2:13 pmactually, Ivory is soap. It’s made with lye.
Charli C. says
July 19, 2013 at 1:39 pmI tried to make glycerin soap, but it smelled nasty. is it supposed to? now i can’t even go downstairs without feeling like i have to barf. please help!
SnappyLiving says
July 19, 2013 at 10:06 pmGlycerin is odorless – what else was in your recipe, Charli? I don’t think plain glycerin soap making should ever smell, but maybe one of the other ingredients did. Otherwise… I don’t know what would happen if you overheated it or something, but I think you’d know if that happened.
Vickie Trujillo says
July 25, 2013 at 11:21 pmI would like to know how to rebatch
Nancy says
August 27, 2013 at 5:29 pmI am trying my hand at soap making I tried it years ago with no luck, so I need HELP! any help will be welcomed thank you Nancy
SnappyLiving says
August 27, 2013 at 6:23 pmAny help in particular, Nancy? We all wish you good luck! :)
L.M. Deaton says
January 17, 2017 at 8:43 pmMy daughter is highly allergic to coconut. I’d like to learn to make her shampoo & soap myself. Is there an easy, inexpensive way to do this?
Thank you for your time.
SnappyLiving says
January 18, 2017 at 7:49 am#15 has several recipes without coconut. Also #14. And #12. #11 has a bunch without coconut, too. And there are some shampoo recipes without coconut at this link: http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/natural-beauty-fashion/stories/how-to-make-your-own-organic-shampoo
Carol says
April 11, 2017 at 5:49 pmI get soap from a place near, Soaptopia. They have one combo that I love, Red Hot Lover, made with cinnamon and clove.