Personalize gift soaps with your own additives and special handmade packaging.
Handmade soap makes a great gift. A craft made from the labors of the heart, soap is something everyone needs to use, so it is less of a clutter burden than gifted trinkets. Melt-and-pour soap is the easiest way to make personalized gift soap for your loved ones to enjoy. Using a ready-made soap base, some soapmaking tools and some choice additives, make beautiful molded soap on your own that you can give to your friends or sell.
Instructions
Making the Soap
1. Choose a melt and pour soap base. Types of soap bases include clear glycerin, whitened glycerin, coconut oil soap base or a glycerin base blended with additives like olive oil, hemp oil, goat's milk, fragrance or coloring.
2. Buy the chosen melt and pour soap at a local soap supply retailer. Melt and pour soaps come in bars, bags of shredded soap for easy melting or in 3- to 5-lb. loaves.
3. Choose your soap mold. Purchase soap molds at soapmaking supply stores or try molding the soap in your favorite small baking mold.
4. Choose soap additives. Common additives to soap include nourishing oils, dried herbs and spices, milk, honey, oatmeal or pumice for an exfoliating quality.
5. Cut the soap base into manageable chunks, sugar cube or smaller size pieces to make them easier to melt.
6. Put the soap chunks in the heat resistant glass measuring cup. Put the soap in the microwave on high for 30 seconds. Check the soap to see if it is melted. Repeat this step, microwaving for 30 seconds until the soap is satisfactorily melted. Microwave power varies, but microwave melting usually takes about a minute per cup of soap.
7. Prepare the heat-resistant molds by lining them with a very thin layer of petroleum jelly to facilitate soap removal when the soap is hardened.
8. With oven gloves to protect your hands from hot glass, remove the soap from the microwave once it is mostly melted. Stir the soap with the silicone spoon until the remaining chunks melt.
9. Add color and scent to the soap a tiny drop at a time and stir until you have the desired color and fragrance.
10. Pour the soap into the prepared molds. If the soap has thickened too much during preparation to properly pour, give it a few more seconds in the microwave and a quick stir to soften it back up. Reheating soap does not harm it.
11. Once the soap has hardened completely, remove it from the mold. Apply any labels that you want to stick to the soap, then put it in to the refrigerator to finish hardening.
Wrapping the Soap
12. Cut a small handmade label for your soap using artisan paper, construction paper or thin cardboard.
13. Using permanent markers, design a personalized gift label.
14. Press the label into the soap while the soap is cool but not completely hardened. The soap will cradle the label and help keep it into place.
15. Tie a cord around the molded soap and label to secure the label and give a decorative flair to the soap.
16. Complete the gift wrapping by giving the soaps their own package. Arrange the gift soaps in a small gift basket or box with decoration and accessories that match your soap.
Tags: soap base, soap your, your soap, gift soaps, melt pour, melt pour soap