How Do You Make Wood Soap?

Wood soap offers you a scented novelty gift.

Soap crafting provides you with a whole new world of scents, textures and looks that not only beautify your skin but also your home environment. Homemade soaps also serve as attractive and useful gifts for your friends and family. For the outdoors lover or the laid-back bohemian in your life, wood soap serves as a scented and textured novelty that is easy to make.

Things You'll Need

• 1 cup melt and pour soap base
• 1/8 oz. brown mica pigment
• 1 oz. essential oil blend
• 1/2 cup stearic acid
• Microwave-safe glass bowl
• Rectangle bar soap mold

Instructions

1. Add 1 cup of melt & pour soap base to a microwave-safe glass bowl. Microwave it on high for two minutes or until it melts into a thin liquid.

2. Add 1/8 oz. of brown mica pigment powder to the melted soap base and mix it thoroughly. The soap base will turn deep brown.

3. Mix in 1/2 cup of stearic acid flakes. Stearic acid works as a hardener for soap bars.

4. Add a blend of essential oils for fragrance. For a wood soap use five drops each of myrrh, frankincense, blue cypress and magnolia. These woody and balmy scents have hints of floral for undertones, making the wood soap smell like a forest grotto.

5. Pour the melted soap into a bar mold. Place it for six hours in a freezer to completely set. Thanks to the large amount of stearic acid in the formula, the bar will harden and crack. This gives it the appearance of being a cracked and woody chunk of tree bark.

Tips & Warnings

• Wrap the wood soap in an eco-friendly wrapper to further accent the theme.

• Wood soap formulations vary from person to person, and the colors you add can mimic aspen, pine or even dogwood. Experiment with different mica pigments to create your own wood color.

References

• Soap Making Resource: Soap Making Supplies and Free Homemade Soap Tutorials
• Craftbits: Soap Projects
• Teach Soap: Soap Making Instructions

Resources

• Ziggurat: Sabrina's Soap Making Resources