Homemade Soap

I have been meaning to make soap for while now.  Over the years, I've seen some really cute ideas that I've sworn I would make and gives as gifts at the little girl's birthday parties. 

Next year, my love, next year.

This project was inspired by an online Martha Stewart article where she couldn't have made look -- anyone, anyone? -- easier.  And so I dived in to make some fairly simple soap.

I love that you can make soap using just about anything in your garden and mixing it with melted glycerin from your favorite crafts store.  Berries, herbs, flowers -- you name it.  At the suggestion of Martha, homemade lemon soap sounded divine and with all our Meyer lemons dangling from branches supported with sticks, it was almost a must. 

Unfortunately, not everyone shared my enthusiasm.

After searching several sites for tips and tricks, I sort of made my own plan and recipe:  Lemon, Thyme and Olive Oil soap.  The making was easy.  I took a one pound block of glycerin, cut it into 1" squares and melted it on the stove-top in a double boiler.  As soon as it was fully melted, I removed it from the heat and added: 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of lemon zest and about 1 tablespoon of thyme leaves. Nothing was exact, I was just kinda doing it the way the wind told me to.

(On a TOTAL side note, I just want to let you know that I'm making a coconut meringue for dessert tonight and my house smells flippin' amazing right now!!)

Making these soaps is a great craft because the soap hardens in 20 - 40 minutes giving little impatient people a very short wait for a big treat.  The down side of that is you have to work fast because before you know it, there is a film forming on top of your melted glycerin. For the molds, I was originally planning on using simple pint cartons that I'd saved to make blocks of soap that I could then slice up and dole out.  But then I remembered this adorable mini-cake mold and decided that I would be perfect for little Spring soaps.  I sprayed them will with vegetable oil and poured in my mixture to set.

 

These Lemon + Thyme with Olive Oil soaps turned out really well in these molds. While bright yellow in color, and all the bits of lemon zest and thyme leaves visible, they don't have a ton of lemon scent.  Maybe they need a little lemon scented oil for a kick start.

Next year, my love, next year.

Comments

[teri]

i bet these smell divine!

[Lauren]

Hi there!

Your recipe for lemon-thyme soap sounds awesome! I work at a summer camp and think that the campers would love this. I do have one question, where did you purchase your glycerine? And is the glycerine you used "Glycerine vegetable USP 99.5%)? I am doing some mass ordering from "New Directions Aromatics" because we are going to make some lip balm and toothpaste with the kids. Would this stuff work?
http://www.newdirectionsaromatics.ca/glycerine-vegetable-usp-995-p-540.html