Melt & Pour Soap

Basic Melt and Pour Soap Making Steps:
To make melt and pour soap, cut your chosen soap base into cubes using the perforated grid on the block as a guideline. Each cut cube is approximately 1 ounce. Heat water to boiling in the bottom pot of a double boiler. Then, reduce heat to simmer. In the top pot of the boiler, add the soap cubes. Stir frequently until they have melted. Then add any desired colorant, clays or other additives (except for solid ingredients and essential/fragrance oils), and stir until well incorporated. Immediately remove your melted soap from of the stove, and let it cool slightly. Stir the soap frequently as it cools. Add your desired fragrance, and stir well. It's best that you wait until the soap has cooled before adding essential or fragrance oils so that the oils don't evaporate before the soap cools. After the soap has cooled slightly, it can be poured into molds. Your soap should be ready to unmold within 2 hours.

Tips:
Preservatives do not need to be added to your soap unless you are using milk, fruit or other fragile ingredients. Use about .5 - 1 oz. fragrance oil or .5 oz. of essential oil per pound of soap. You will need to experiment with the amount of fragrance or essential oil to add as it can vary depending on the oil's aromatic strength. Clays can be used as natural colorants. Dry ingredients such as clays, oatmeal, herbs or fruit seeds should be added at a rate of about 1 tablespoon per lb. of soap. This base will not suspend heavy particles, so try to add solid ingredients when the soap has cooled slightly. Do not overheat or microwave soap bases as high heat will ruin the lather and make the soap brittle. Glycerin soaps should be packaged immediately after removing them from molds to avoid condensation on the bar. Fingerprints can be removed from soap with a little bit of alcohol.