How to Melt Soap Into a Mold

Melting and molding your own homemade soap gives you a simple, easy way to express your creativity, make unique gifts, or to just personalize and add a little flair your bathroom and get away from the plain, boring bars that populate store shelves.
With a few basic tools and a little time, you could be making your own homemade soap in just about any shape, fragrance, or color you can imagine.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Melt & Mold Homemade Soap Base
• Some Kind of Mold
• Fragrance Oil (Optional)
• Coloring (Optional)
• Herbs or Other Additions (Optional)

1. 
    

   The first thing you will need is a quality melt and mold base. There are a variety of bases to choose from, including: glycerin, goat's milk, olive oil, and more. I prefer to use goat's milk base because of its creamy texture, but most bases will have a little glycerin to improve lathering and to moisturize the skin.

2. 
    

   Measure out how much soap your particular mold requires. This will be imprinted on most molds. If it is not, you can fill the mold with water and pour it into a measuring cup to determine the volume of soap base you will need.

3. Dice your soap base into small pieces, half an inch or so on each side. You don't need to be exact, but the soap will melt more evenly if it is cut into uniform shapes.

4. 
    

   Put your soap base in a heat-resistant glass container and microwave at 30 second intervals until the soap is completely melted. You need to microwave at small intervals to keep the soap from overheating and boiling over. Gently stir to make sure everything is melted, but do not stir too vigorously or you will beat the soap into a lather.

5. 
    

   Now comes the fun part. This is where you add your colorings, fragrances, herbs, oils, and other additives. The exact amounts will depend on the manufacturer, but you want to be careful not to add too much coloring or you could potentially dye your skin. In most cases, you will only need a very small amount of each addition. Gently stir them into the melted base, careful to not create too much lather.

6. Pour your melted base into the mold of your choice and allow it to cool. I place my molds on a cooling rack for enhanced airflow. Most homemade soap will harden within 3-4 hours.

7. 
    

   Pop the homemade soap out of the molds and enjoy. If they do not want to release from the mold, put the mold in the freezer for about 30 minutes and they should release much more easily. Melt and pour soaps are already cured, so they are ready to use right away. If you are not going to use them in a relatively short period of time, wrap them in plastic wrap to keep them from losing their fragrance.

Tips & Warnings

• Possible additions: spices, herbs, oatmeal, and more.
• Don't limit yourself to actual soap molds. You can use just about anything that can withstand the heat of the melted soap. You can even make coin shaped soap wafers by molding it in PVC pipe and then slicing it.
• Homemade soap makes wonderful anniversary, Valentine's Day, and Mother's Day gifts.
• Be careful to not overheat the homemade soap base.

Resources

• How to Make An Inexpensive, Last-Minute Gift Basket

[juliemcmurchie]

on 3/9/2009 This is a great idea. Thanks.

[Elander]

on 1/7/2009 You skin wouldn't be permanently dyed, of course, but it would take a few hours to a day or so for the pigment to go away. It would be kind of like the staining you get from beet juice.

[JMKnudson]

on 12/25/2008 I did this once with a little soap kit. But, this way is a lot more personalized. I'll try this!

[andre7514]

on 12/24/2008 Great article, Thanks for sharing!!!

[Kathymcbain]

on 12/23/2008 Fun! I did this with my daughter when she was little. We should do it again.