Make Your Own Soap at Home!

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Healthy Child

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Here, Anne-Marie Faiola, aka Soap Queen, gives us an easy, non-toxic recipe to make your own herbal soap at home!

"More families are increasingly concerned about what we put into our bodies. In addition to what enters us through our diet, parents are becoming more aware of the effects of personal care products applied directly to our bodies. This is especially important for small children who often have sensitivities and a lower threshold for common household irritants. Making your own soap is a great way to control the ingredients that go into your bath tub, onto your child and down your drain.

One of the personal care ingredients children can be most easily irritated by is synthetic color and fragrance. Its very hard for parents to resist buys soaps with fun colors like bright pink and yummy fragrances (what kid doesn't like strawberry bubblegum?). But if your child has sensitive skin or allergies, these are the first things to eliminate. When you make your own soap, you choose all the ingredients. So you can use charcoal to color your bar and all natural essential oils to fragrance it, creating a soap that is naturally derived and cleans effectively.

Here's an easy recipe for DIY soap (perfect to make with children ages 4 and up with parental supervision):

Ingredients:

Herbs, oatmeal, coffee, spirulina, clay, or food-grade charcoal
1 pound (16 ounces) Bramble Berry melt and pour soap, organic base
1 ounce essential oil (we used lavender, orange and eucalyptus)
"Soap mold" (a clean, used plastic food dish, like an empty yogurt container)
Rubbing Alcohol

Instructions:

1. Prep your herbs and make sure they are the right size for exfoliating gently. Sharp herbs may be too abrasive on the skin. I love using charcoal. It helps to remove toxins and impurities, similar to clay. Plus, it gives the soap a nice black hue.
2. Cut the organic melt and pour blocks into 1 x 1" cubes.
3. Melt the soap in 30-second increments until the soap is fully melted.
4. Add .25 ounces to .50 ounces of essential oil. Remember, if you use a yellow or orange colored fragrance, your soap base will look less clear and look more yellow/orange.
5. Mix in your herbs or additives. Stir until the herbs seem mostly suspended.
6. Pour your scented and herb'ed soap into the make-shift mold
7. Don't fill your make-shift soap mold all the way up. It helps for easy release to fill 85% of the way to the top and not the entire way.
8. The finishing touch is a layer of rubbing alcohol to finish off your soap and give it a nice smooth surface
9. Wait for the soap to harden, the wrap it with saran wrap, label and enjoy the compliments you'll get!

Making your own soap is an innovative way to help save the earth, improve your household's carbon footprint, and help keep irritants out of your child's bathtime. For more information on making your own soaps, visit Soap Queen for instructions and Bramble Berry for all the ingredients."

Posted by Acai on 05/27/2009 at 12:19 PM

I never would have thought it was only a 10 step process to make your own soap! Seems pretty simple when you actually read it all. Thanks for sharing.

Posted by Spica Cast on 01/12/2009 at 12:34 PM

I would have never thought that coffee would go into any form of soap. I just never thought of getting any “coffee scented deodorant”. Cool idea though!

Posted by Anne-Marie on 01/11/2009 at 12:22 PM

Thanks for the shout out. Making soap is easy, fun and definitely kid friendly. I hope your readers try it! =)

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