How to Make
🧼 Soap
Herbal soap making, from beginner-friendly melt-and-pour to full cold-process bars — a rewarding way to combine plant benefits with everyday cleansing.
Video guide coming soon — for now, follow the written steps below.
Equipment needed
- Digital scale (essential for accurate, safe lye measurements)
- Heat-safe containers for lye solution and oils
- Stick blender
- Silicone soap molds
- Protective gloves and eye protection
- Thermometer
- Lye (sodium hydroxide) for cold process, or a melt-and-pour base for a beginner-friendly method
General method
- Choose a method: melt-and-pour (beginner-friendly, no lye handling) or cold process (built from scratch, requires lye).
- For melt-and-pour: gently melt the soap base, stir in herbs, colorants, or fragrance, and pour into molds.
- For cold process: carefully dissolve lye into water — always add lye to water, never the reverse — and let it cool. Separately melt your oils and butters.
- Combine the lye solution with the oils and blend with a stick blender until reaching "trace" (a pudding-like thickness).
- Stir in any herbal infusions, essential oils, or colorants, then pour into molds.
- Let cold-process soap cure for 4–6 weeks before use; melt-and-pour soap is ready once fully hardened, usually within a few hours.
- Always wear gloves and eye protection when working with lye.