Making soap bars #1:

This first post about making soap is the kid friendly version. I plan to make more using recipes from my new book, and I'll be posting about those soon.

First I bought a soap kit at hobby lobby, so that I could get aquainted with soap making without the use of lye, which is very dangerous.

The kit included:

Molds, white glycern bars, clear glycern bars, fragrence (not natural, so I got my own essential oil), 3 basic colors, and a few recipes to make them pretty and fun.

Additional things you need: A spray bottle with rubbing alcohol in it, pyrex measuring cup, and a spoon.

-First you take a glycern bar and melt it in the microwave.
-Then you add your color and essential oils, start with very small amounts. I have read you should mix a few drops of the essential oils with something like olive oil just a little beacause direct contact on skin isn't recommended.
-Pour into mold and let sit, they cool very quickly.
- Spray once with rubbing alchohol to reduce bubbles.

To spice it up, you can grow your own herbs like lavendar or sage for example and toss those in there.
You can also leave the coloring out to be more natural. I plan on doing this soon!

To make these you would just color some soap and then after it has hardened cut into chunks, lay in mold and pour melted soap over it and put in the fridge to cool quicker!

I choose to store mine in jars to reduce plastic use, but for gift giving you can make all kids of pouches for soaps by using scrap cloth, scrap cardboard, anything like that and decorating it up nice. Another fun craft to do, by painting and labeling it you can personalize it making it more fun and heartfelt!

Next soap post will be about olive oil soaps. Until then I hope you enjoy this eco friendly project!