Skin Care

Other than colorants and fragrance or essential oils, there are a number of neat things you can add to your homemade soap. One of my favorites is honey (which is a humectant), but there’s also milk, glycerin, tomato paste, shea butter, silk, cocoa powder, fruit juice and pulp, flowers and dried herbs, finely chopped oatmeal, cornmeal (for an exfoliating bar), poppy seeds, wine and beer, finely ground coffee beans, citrus zest, berry seeds, yogurt, natural aloe vera gel, Vitamin E pills contents (2-3 per pound), seaweed, uncooked adzuki beans or almonds ground right into a fine powder, and embedded objects. In cold process soap making, whisk in these additives once you have mixed to an appropriate trace. For liquids, add at a light trace. For anything you want halted equally throughout the bar (seeds, oatmeal), add at a heavy trace otherwise the additive will drain to the lower part.

As far as milk goes, you can really make use of any kind of milk-cow’s, goat’s, cream, buttermilk, half and half, plain yogurt mixed with water, even powdered milk. Use the milk straight in place of the water your recipe requires. Nevertheless, I once used Egg Nog, but it turned dark brown and lost its rich smell. Regardless of what milk you use, freeze it before you use it. It should be “slushy” when included with the mixture. Milk soaps have a tendency to overheat, just like honey soaps.

In addition, any time you make use of alcohol in a recipe, let it go flat or boil it to release the alcohol, then cool it prior to use. If you don’t even a tiny 1/2 pound batch will begin explosively boiling when the lye is included.

As far as honey goes, add about 1/2 ounce per pound of soap. Be sure to spray the honey measuring spoon with non-stick cooking spray to so you do not have honey residue sticking to the spoon and altering your measurement.

To embed objects in your soap, put, say, a tiny plastic toy, rope for soap-on-a-rope, or the same item into your soap mold then pour the soap batter into the mold. Of course, this works best with see-through or glycerin soaps, that are generally “melt and pour” projects-not handmade cold processed soap.

When attaching dried herbs or flowers, sprinkle them on top of soap just poured into the mold or mix them in with a whisk right before pouring into the mold. Most herbs will turn brown in your soap as time passes. Dried herbs oftentimes bleed a brown color out into the soap surrounding it as well. Many people find this ugly, while some feel it is beautiful plus a soap mark being handmade from natural materials.

For more information on this and other handmade soap topics, go to purehandmadesoap.com. This website also offers free soapmaking video tutorials, pictures of the organic handmade soap process, free beginner soap recipes, and a 50-page soap “how to” ebook. The ebook includes 39 one-pound soap recipes, 60 natural soap bar pictures, and details on how to make your own soap recipes.