DIY: Soap : I made my own soap! Easy tutorial in 8 steps.

I recently blogged about how to make your own soap and showed you some soapmaking kits I had come accross. well, I finally got around to actually using my kits. I made enough to fill all 3 soap moulds once. I took a few photos to show how I did it. For most of it, I used only the ingredients that came with each kit to give an idea of what results you can expect if you use the same kits. Here, I used the House of Crafts Handmade Soap Kit.

Step 1. Cut the soap into small cubes. It doesn't have to be exact, it just helps the soap to melt a bit faster. Estimate how much you will need to fill each mould and then add a tiny bit more (I ended up using roughly a quarter of the soap that came with the kit.)

Step 2. If you are going to heat it in a microwave, put it in a microwavable container. I used an Asda Smart Price jug, which only cost 35p! If you are using a saucepan, follow the instruction sheet for that method.

Step 3. Melt it! I put my soap in the microwave for 30 secs, gave it a gentle stir, then again for bursts of 15 seconds stirring inbetween each burst. You shouldn't heat it for more than 15 seconds at a time as you risk overheating your soap. Carry on until it is completely liquid.

Step 4. Use the pipette to get put some fragrance oil in your soap. I used about 14 small drops. If you use a different oil, please check that it is suitable for use on the body. Fragrance oils that you use in oil burners and candles are NOT suitable for use in soap.

Step 5. If you are adding any petals, seeds, colour or glitter (cosmetic grade) this is the time to do it. Mix it in gently. If you want each soap to look different, you can add petals or seeds to the mould and mix it after filling the mould.

If the soap sets before you have time to pour it, pop it back in the microwave for 15 seconds at a time until it is melted again. This is the beauty of working with melt and pour soap.

Step 6: Pour the soap into the mould. Cover it and leave on a flat surface until completely set. I left mine overnight before unmoulding. Notice how my soap has air bubbles? One way to get rid of this is to spray with rubbing alcohol. Unfortunately, this is not easy to get hold of in the UK. I think it adds character to the soap anyway but that is down to personal preference.

Step 7. When your soap is set, gently push it out of the mould. If it doesn't want to come out, pop it in the fridge for half an hour and try again. You should wrap the soap in cellophane or clingfilm as soon as possible.

Step 8. Run yourself a bath and enjoy your handmade soap!

Easy huh? Here are the all the soaps I made from the 3 kits I had:

I am really pleased with my results, especially for my first try. It was a lots of fun to do and I love how you can control everything that goes into them. Will you be trying this?

DIY: Soap: House of Crafts Soapmaking Kit Comparison

Hello again! Yesterday, we discovered the 4 ways of making your own soap. The method that suits me best is melt & pour soapmaking.  If this is something you want to try, you can either buy all of your ingredients or purchase a kit instead. In the long run, it is cheaper to buy everything separately but this means spending more upfront. I decided to try kits first. I purchased 3 kits from Hobbycraft, all made by House of Crafts.

House of Crafts - Soap Making Craft Kit

This kit cost £8.99 from here and includes a soap mould with room for 6 soaps, a pipette, fragrance oil, 3 coloured pigments and some clear soap base. It also comes with an instruction sheet. 

House of Crafts - Handmade Soap Kit

This cost £10.99 from here and includes a soap mould with space for 3 soaps, a pipette, fragrance oil, marigold petals, Irish moss, lemon grass and some clear soap base. It also comes with an instruction sheet.

House of Crafts - Organic Soap Making Kit

This one cost £14.99 from here and includes a soap mould with space for 4 soaps, organic lemon essential oil (the bottle has a dropper in it so a pipette is not needed, aniseed, linseed, poppy seeds, marigold petals and organic soap base. It  also comes with an instruction sheet.

The biggest difference between these kits is the amount of soap you get. 

With the first kit, you get aprox. 250g of clear soap, the second one is about 750g of the same clear base and the organic one has roughly 1kg which has a creamy colour to it. 

The kits are fairly good value for money just for the moulds as these can set you back from £5 - £10 each on average. The fragrance oils with the first 2 kits smell very similar, if not identical and it is a floral scent, not one which I am a fan of to be honest. The lemon essential oil smells divine though. Also, only the first kit contains dyes to colour your soap with. The first two kits can be melted in a microwave or in 2 saucepans over the hob whereas the organic one only mentions the saucepan method in the instructions. If you only buy one kit, you can only make very small batches each time as you need to wait for your soaps to set before you can remove them from the mould.

Personally, I would not really recommend the Soap Making Craft Kit as you don't get anywhere near enough soap.  The Organic Soap Making Kit is great if you want natural soap but my favourite has to be the Handmade Soap Kit just because it can be prepared in the microwave so it is easier to prepare.

When I bought these, they were on a 3 for 2 offer so I ended up paying £24.99 for all 3. If it weren't for that, I probably wouldn't of got all of them.

In addition to any of the kits, you also need something to cut the soap with before melting, a chopping board, something to melt the soap in (either a microwavable container or 2 saucepans depending on how you choose to heat it) and a spoon. Technically it should be OK to use your equipment for food after making soap with them as long as you have cleaned them thoroughly but I prefer not to take the chance. 

I have also purchased ingredients and moulds separately. It cost me a lot more than £24.99 though! Here is what I have:

Moulds

Soap Base

Fragrance Oils (must be cosmetic grade)

Pigments & Glitter (cosmetic grade)

House of Crafts also make a bath bomb kit but I would strongly advise you NOT to buy this one because it is not good value for money. All you need is Sodium Bicarbonate and Citric Acid and you use the same colours / fragrance oils and moulds as you do for soap making. 5kg Sodium Bicarbonate cost me £4.99 and 1kg Citric Acid was £2.99. Thats enough to make LOADS of bath bombs!

Bath Bomb Ingredients

Sorry for such a long post but I hope this info was helpful. I will post more photos when my soaps are done!

DIY: The 4 Ways To Make Your Own Soap

Hi! Today I am writing about something a bit different. I know a lot of you like to experiment with DIY beauty products. I  have recently become interested in making soap, and I just wanted to share this with you how to get started if you would like to have soapmaking as a hobby too.

If you want to make homemade soap, there are 4 ways you can go about it. You really need to choose your method first so you can look for information and recipes specific to that method later on. The equipment you need will change depending on your chosen way too.

• Melt and Pour
• Cold Process
• Hot Process
• Hand milling

I have also included Youtube videos that demonstrate each technique, so hopefully you can find the one to suit you!

Melt and Pour aka Glycerine Soap, Soap Casting, MP
I would strongly recommend that you start with this method. It is easier, safer and more forgiving than the others. You can even do it with kids and it teaches you the basics about colours and fragrance. You start with a soap base, melt it in a microwave or on the hob (the same way you melt chocolate), add colour and fragrance then pour into a mould. As soon as it has set, you can remove it from the mould and it is ready to use. You can add other oils and other extras  such as petals, oats and seeds, but you are limited to how much you can include. If you make a mistake, or the soap hardens, it can be melted again without a problem.


Cold Process aka CP, Lye Soap
This is how you truly make soap "from scratch" or from raw ingredients. It involves the use of Lye (NaOH, Sodium Hydroxide, Caustic Soda) which gives off harmful fumes and is corrosive. You can't get this on your skin at all so proper safety precautions must be taken. This method requires more equipment and you need to use large quantities of oils to add to the lye. Even though it is called cold process, the chemical reaction causes the liquids to heat up. You have more control over what goes in to soap made this way but you also need to be precise with your measurements. Failure to do this can make your soap unusable. This kind of soap needs to be left to cure for several weeks. This cannot be remelted on its own so if you do make a mistake, you can sometimes rework the soap using the handmilling method, unless it is lye heavy (it will have white crystals on the outside). This would be dangerous to use on the skin and should be disposed of as a caustic material.


Hot Process aka HP
This is the same as cold process except that the soap needs to be cooked to evaporate the excess liquid. Even though this means it takes longer, this additional step means that there is no curing time. Your soap will be ready to use as soon as it has set. Again, this means working with lye so it is not suitable to do around children. Some mistakes can be handmilled unless it is lye heavy.


Handmilling aka Rebatching, French Milled Soap
As mentioned above, this technique is great for putting mistakes right. As you do not have to add extra lye, it  means you do not have to work directly with lye. You could also buy readymade lye soap and use that for this technique. The soap is shredded and then mixed with a liquid such as water, milk or even fruit juice, and heated up. Colours & scents are added before it is poured into moulds and left to set. This does need to be left to cure for several weeks so if you are impatient, this method is not for you!



Hopefully, by now you have a good idea of how soapmaking works and if this is something you would like to try. If you now know which technique suits you best, you now need to go and research A LOT. You could just search for your chosen method online for recipe ideas and more information, join a soapmaking forum or buy some books.
Suggested reading:

• The Complete Idiot's Guide to Making Natural Soaps by Sally W. Trew with Zonella B. Gould
• The Everything Soapmaking Book by Alicia Grosso
• The Soapmaker's Companion by Susan Miller Cavitch
• The Natural Soap Book by Susan Miller Cavitch
• 300 Handcrafted Soaps (melt and pour) by Marie Browning

I hope you enjoyed this post, and I hope you have a better understanding of how natural soapmaking works. Due to the safety risks with the other methods, and having a little boy who's nearly 11 months old, melt & pour is the only technique I can use at the moment. Tomorrow, I will be doing a comparison between soapmaking kits and buying the materials separately.

Another Nail Polish Post ....... with a twist!

Howdy!
I have been messing around with nail polishes AGAIN! Here are some of the ones I used:

The difference this time is that I didn't paint my nails with them. I actually painted these:

These glass pebbles were from Wilko, and the whole bag only cost £1. They also sell a similar bag at Asda, also priced at £1.

To start with, I gave all of the stones a little clean and painted the flat side with one coat of top coat (the kind usually used on your nails). This has to be totally dry before you can continue. Then I started painting designs on them with nail polish. You can layer in the same way you would on your nails but you have to apply the colours in the opposite order you would normally, so if you are using crackle polish, you put that first, before the colour you want to show through underneath. It is really important to make sure the nail polish is totally dry between coats or it will smudge / stay tacky. I then finished off with a black nail polish to cover up the bottom and make the colours "pop".

Here are my results:

I also did some that glow in UV light:

You can make these into jewellery if you have the thingys  findings to glue onto them, use them to decorate a box or photo frame with or just leave them as they are. I am waiting for my jewellery findings to arrive so I will do an update when they are here. I love the idea of making them into rings because then you can match them with your manicure. Like this:

I had to just balance the pebble on my finger like how a ring would sit but you get the idea hehe.

So what do you think? Is this something you will be trying?

DISCLAIMER: All products used here were bought by myself with my own money.