At first glance, the topic of making homemade soap seems irrelevant. Indeed, in our time, shops are replete with a variety of hygiene products with the addition of cosmetic, medicinal components. But how much more pleasant to make an exclusive piece of soap with your own hands! It can be an excellent gift or delight its owner with a favorite aroma and aesthetic unusualness. To make soap is not difficult at all, and we will talk about this in today's article.
What will be needed for work
Soap can be cooked in many ways, using ready-made soap bases, which are available in specialized stores, or simple baby soap without additives. Purchased base can be colored or transparent, have a complete set of oil in packages.
Tools
To cook soap at home, you need to get heat-resistant containers that can be heated without fear in a microwave or in a water bath, as well as silicone molds. Before pouring the forms with a solution, they must be treated with alcohol. Also do not forget about the thermometer for liquids and a measuring cup.
Add healing oil
Soap oil can be selected based on personal preferences, because each of them has its own aroma and affects skin differently. For example, apricot oil softens, moisturizes, gives elasticity, saturates the skin with vitamins A, B, C, E. Kastorovoy perfectly whitens, restores the oily skin. Coconut smoothes the skin, makes it more tender, sage fights against wrinkles, eliminates skin problems, including acne. Almond establishes the sebaceous glands, saturates the body with vitamins E and F.
In order not to cause an allergic reaction from an overdose of oil, it must be introduced in small quantities - half a teaspoon per 100 g of soap base is enough.
What you need to give the soap color
To give the soap a color, you can use waterproof food colors or commercially available liquid and pigmented ones. Soap with natural dyes should be stored in a dark place, as the color quickly fades. So, for example, using beetroot juice, you can give the soap a pink hue, a solution of chamomile will make it more yellow, dill or parsley - green, and cocoa powder - chocolate.
If you want to give your soap a bright saturated color or make it multicolored, it is better to purchase an artificial liquid or dry dye. In the second case, the powder must first be mixed with glycerin or oil, and then added to the general mixture.
There is another type of dye - mineral. It is made in the form of powder, and its presence emphasizes the relief of the product, creates a beautiful shine and shimmer.
Additional additives
Home-made soap can optionally be enriched with additional properties, including special components in the composition. For example, if you want soap to cleanse your skin as a scrub, add ground coffee or oatmeal to the composition. Moisturizing and refreshing effect will have honey, cream. Various infusions of herbs will help problem skin, have a therapeutic effect.
Soap base cooking technology
Making soap yourself is quite simple. First, unpack the acquired soap base, cut it into small cubes. We put everything in a pre-prepared container and send it to a water bath.Constantly stirring with chopsticks, we periodically measure the temperature of the melted base - it should not exceed 60 degrees, because otherwise the soap will be filled with unnecessary bubbles, and its quality will significantly decrease.
When the mass is completely melted, add prepared oils, dyes and other additives to it, if desired, mix thoroughly. Now the finished composition can be poured into pre-prepared and alcohol-treated molds. We send the filled forms to a cold place for a couple of hours. Please note that putting them in the freezer is strictly not recommended.
If you want to make a multi-colored soap, before pouring the next color layer into the mold, you need to sprinkle the previous one with alcohol and scratch a little - this will ensure better adhesion of materials.
When the soap has completely hardened, it must be carefully removed from the mold, dipped in hot water for a couple of minutes, and then put on parchment to dry. It is advisable to store homemade soap in paper packaging, and if natural dyes are present in it, it is better that it is dark.
How to make nutritious baby soap
Homemade soap made in the following way will help moisturize, regenerate and rejuvenate the skin with regular use. To work, you will need the following ingredients: baby soap (100 g), milk (100 g), 1 tablespoon of honey and olive oil, essential formulations (optional). If you want to make several pieces at once, just increase the proportions.
Rub the soap on a grater, add honey and send to a saucepan in a water bath. Constantly stirring, bring to a semi-melted state, then gradually introduce the remaining components, mix thoroughly. The resulting mass is laid out on molds for solidification.
Cooking a “romantic” soap
Homemade soap can be not only useful, but also beautiful. Let's look at a way to make a soap with hearts, which can be a great gift for a loved one.
For work, it is necessary to prepare small molds in the form of hearts and larger rectangular ones to form a full-fledged piece of soap. In this case, you can purchase two types of soap base - transparent and white. The base must be cut and melted in the microwave. If you use baby soap - you need to heat it in a water bath, after adding a little water, honey or sugar.
When the mass becomes semi-liquid, add the red dye. Here it is worth considering one nuance - if the mass is prepared from a white soap base or baby soap, the dye will give only a pink tint. To obtain a saturated red color, it is better to use a transparent composition.
Pour the finished scarlet mass into the heart-shaped molds treated with alcohol and leave it to solidify. At this time, we drown the basis for the formation of soap briquettes. We put the cooled hearts in a rectangular mold and fill it again, but with a transparent or white base. When the products are completely hardened, remove, rinse under warm water and lay on dry. Great gift ready!
Soap “Orange Slices”
To make such a charming soap in the form of orange slices, you do not need supernatural skills. Despite the apparent complexity of the pattern, everything is much simpler than you think. For work, you need two types of soapy mass - transparent and white. It is also necessary to purchase two plastic cups of different sizes.
First of all, we melt the transparent base (100 g), add base oil (20 g) to it. When the mixture becomes semi-molten, we introduce a teaspoon of sea buckthorn and a few drops of orange oil. Pour the resulting orange composition into a smaller plastic cup.
While our mold hardens, melt the white soap base, add a few drops of coconut oil to it.We take out the cooled mold and cut it into slices (the edges of each of them need to be slightly scratched with a toothpick), then lay on the bottom of a larger cup so that small gaps are obtained between the elements. We add a semi-liquid white soapy solution to this composition and again leave it to set.
The finished soap-lobule is removed from the glass. If there are defects or smudges on the surface, you can carefully cut the knife with a knife. As a result, you will get a nice, useful bar of soap that will surely please not only you, but also the kids.
Soap scrub with coffee and ginger
This is another wonderful version of home soap, which will help to cleanse the skin, nourish it with the necessary components, moisturize and give a light pleasant aroma. For preparation, in addition to a soap base or baby soap, you need ground coffee, ginger powder and a little almond or cinnamon extract at your own discretion.
First of all, melt the soapy mass in a steam bath. Let it cool slightly so that ground coffee simply does not dissolve in a hot soapy solution and does not lose its exfoliating properties. When the base cools down a little, add all the additional ingredients: coffee, ginger and almonds. We lay out the mass in molds and leave to harden. At the stage of kindling a soap base, you can add a little grated chocolate to it, which will give a great shade. If you are preparing it for a gift, you can pick up a beautiful mold and decorate the top with whole coffee beans.
DIY soap - photo
In conclusion, we suggest you make sure how beautiful home-made soap can be by visiting our photo gallery. Enjoy watching!