How to Make Homemade Soap

Making your own soap at home is easier than you might think! This simple recipe creates five beautiful 3.5-ounce bars using just a few natural ingredients. While the process requires some patience (you'll need to let your soap cure for about a month), the hands-on time is surprisingly quick. Although I do find waiting for the lye and oils to cool can be tedious, lol!

Time Investment:

• Hands-on work: About 1 hour
• Curing time: 4 weeks
• Total yield: 5 bars of soap

What You'll Need

Ingredients:

• ⅔ cup unrefined coconut oil (creates a nice lather)
• ⅔ cup olive oil (makes your bars hard and gentle on skin)
• ⅔ cup almond oil (I have also used grapeseed, sunflower, avocado, or safflower oil)
• ¼ cup lye (100% sodium hydroxide crystals, available at hardware stores)
• ¾ cup cool distilled or purified water

Equipment:

• Newspaper for workspace protection
• Rubber gloves and safety goggles
• Quart-sized canning jar
• Pint-sized jar
• Mixing bowl
• Spoon & immersion blender (definitely need an immersion blender for the heavy mixing)
• Thermometer
• Silicone mold or loaf pan
• Plastic wrap and an old towel

Let's Make Soap!

Safety First

Before you begin, cover your work surface with newspaper and put on your protective gear. Lye is a caustic substance that requires respect and care, but don't let that intimidate you—just follow the safety precautions. Don't inhale it- I repeat, don't inhale it!

Mix the Lye Solution

Pour your ¾ cup of water into the quart jar. Carefully measure exactly ¼ cup of lye. Slowly pour the lye into the water (never the other way around!), stirring as you add it. Stand back to avoid breathing the fumes. Once the water clears, set it aside to cool. The jar will be hot, so handle it appropriately.

Prepare Your Oils

Combine all three oils in the pint jar—they should measure about one pint total. Warm them in the microwave for about a minute, or place the jar in a pan of hot water. You're aiming for a temperature around 120°F.

The Temperature Sweet Spot

Here's where timing matters: both your lye solution and your oils need to cool to between 95°F and 105°F. This temperature range is crucial for creating smooth, quality soap. When they're ready, you can move forward. This is by far my least favorite part...the waiting.

Combining and Mixing

Pour your oils into a mixing bowl. Slowly add the lye solution, stirring constantly. Mix by hand for a full 5 minutes—this ensures the lye comes into contact with all the oils. You can continue stirring by hand or switch to an immersion blender to speed things up. (This is where the blender comes in for sure, lol)

Watch for your soap to lighten in color and thicken to the consistency of vanilla pudding. This is called "trace," and it means your soap is ready for the next step.

Add Your Special Touches

This is when you can stir in essential oils, dried herbs, or natural colorants to customize your soap.
Have fun with your scents! This is where you can really personalize your gifts! I love Plant Therapy oils, but have used some bulk ones from Amazon for soap. {Grapefruit Ylang Ylang Patchouli Lemongrass}
It's really trial and error, but these are some of my favorite combinations:

Lavender Oil/Mint Oil
Mint Chocolate (Peppermint Oil and Unsweetened Cocoa powder)
Cinnamon Oil/ Coffee (use actual coffee, this also makes it have a scrub effect)
Clary Sage/ Ylang Ylang (my favorite, I think)
Dried Lavender, Chamomile, Rose and Marigold to add to soap: What I have

Molding and Curing

Pour the mixture into your silicone mold or loaf pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Cover with plastic wrap, then wrap the entire mold in an old towel. This insulation helps retain heat and kickstarts the saponification process (the chemical reaction that turns your ingredients into actual soap).

The Waiting Game

After 24 hours, check your soap. If it's still warm or soft, give it another 12-24 hours. Once it's cold and firm, remove it from the mold. If you used a loaf pan, now's the time to cut your soap into individual bars.

Place your bars on parchment paper or a wire rack. Now comes the hardest part: waiting four weeks for your soap to fully cure. Turn the bars weekly to expose all sides to air. If they are on a wire rack, you don't have to turn them. This curing process allows excess water to evaporate, creating a harder, longer-lasting bar. And your storage room will smell AMAZING!

Storage

Once cured, wrap your finished soap in wax paper or store it in an airtight container. Handmade soap produces its own glycerin, which attracts moisture from the air, so proper storage keeps your bars clean and dry.

Cleanup Tips

For lye-exposed equipment, neutralize with white vinegar first, then wash thoroughly. 

For everything else, here's a time-saving trick: let it sit for several days. Fresh soap mixture is difficult to clean and can irritate skin, but once it becomes actual soap, it cleans up easily with just hot water.

Packaged and ready for sharing!

-Melissa

*original recipe from @diynatural

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