DIY Bar Soap

I had a wonderful lady mention she would like to learn how to make her own bar soap. Another great lady said she would too, so today I am bringing you 2 different DIY Bar Soap recipes.

The first one is going to be a citrus soap. I am not going to lie, I have made a lot of DIY stuff for your body but I have never made a bar soap, I might just give it a try too!

In this post there are going to be links to show you which ones were originally used for the recipes I found.

What you need for the citrus soap is:

Goat's Milk, Melt & Pour Base click here.

Silicone Soap Molds, click here.

Citrus Essential Oils, Do Not by Wal-Mart brand for your body, they are okay in your diffuser but not on your body. I buy the brand NOW, you can get them on eBay for good prices, actually best prices I have found.

Dried Citrus Slices (instructions below on how to make your own)

Okay so you need to dry your citrus slices, you can mix fruits or just do one fruit (lemons, limes or oranges). Cut into thin slices about 1/8" (keep the size of your mold in mind). You want smaller end fruits because of the molds so don't buy large sized. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Lay your citrus on top of a wire rack on top of a pan and place in the oven until dry, it takes about 2-3 hours. How long it takes really depends on how thick your slices are and how wide. Remove when they are done and let them cool.

Now you want to break up your soap base into chunks and place in a microwave safe container. Microwave on 20-30 second intervals, stirring to make sure it's smooth and melted. Add a few drops of the essential oils to the melted soap base and stir.

Next step, place your citrus slices inside the molds before pouring the soap.

Pour your soap base into the molds, be careful it can still be hot.

Here is the exciting news..... after a couple hours pop the soaps out and you have beautiful handmade soaps. That are good for you and great presents to give out!!

This next recipe is just a basic DIY soap recipe, no lye again. You can be creative and add any scents you want with essential oils (I will repeat, use the NOW brand).

What you'll need...

A silicone mold you can pick out anyone you like (eBay or Amazon)

Your soap base, it comes in a block, you can choose from olive oil, goat's milk, coconut oil and more (again purchase online)

A heatproof bowl (or a large Pyrex measuring cup)

A cooking scale

Before I go any further, I want to note that there are some awesome molds out there, you don't have to do square soaps, you can choose anything. They even have cartoon and movie based molds that you could make for young kids just to wash their hands with.

Now here are your instructions....

Measure out 1lb of your soap base that you chose. Chop the soap base into large pieces and put in your heat proof container or Pyrex measuring cup. Place in microwave 20-30 seconds at a time, stirring until smooth and melted.

Once it's melted add your essential oils and you can even add herbs you'll want to use about 30 drops of your essential oils (if you are using more than one scent make sure you use the same amount of drops for each scent.) Peppermint and Lavender are great together. Then add 1/2tsp of herbs (if you choose herbs) per pound of soap base (rosemary would be great with the peppermint and lavender).

Mix well and pour into your mold.

Allow to cool for several hours before unmolding.

There you have it 2 great, simple, no lye DIY hand soap recipes! I can't wait to make mine!