Soap Making with kids…
In preparation for Mother’s Day, we decided to make soap for the grandmas.
I wanted to use an organic soap base, but couldn’t find any on short notice. We chose two soap bases that they sell at Michael’s and Amazon.
Supplies
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Shea Butter suspension soap base (Amazon) or Shea Butter Soap (Michaels)
Oatmeal
Soap Mold
Essential Oil
Rubbing Alcohol (for spraying the molds)
We broke the soap up into pieces and microwaved it for about a 1.5 minutes. Clear directions are on the box. This could also be heated in a double broiler.
Once melted, we added a few drops of Lavender oil and oatmeal, and mixed it up.
To keep bubbles out of the soap, N prepared the molds by spraying them with rubbing alcohol. She loved this step. Adult supervision with rubbing alcohol is obviously recommended!
We poured a little bit of soap into each mold and then placed embossing soap stamps on top of the soap. This keeps the stamps from sliding around.
I then poured the soap mixture on top.
Note: In subsequent batches I didn’t bother “gluing” the stamps down, which improved the appearance of the soap.
Waiting for the homemade soap to cool is the hardest part!
However, to keep our spirits high, this was a good time for lunch. What did we eat?
Oatmeal, of course!
Aren’t they pretty?! The two cupcake-looking soaps you can see way back there came out of Silicone Cupcake Molds.
What to Avoid!
In case you’re like me and think, “hmmm, why bother buying that soap base when I can just get some soap and melt it down and make a new bar of soap?”
Here’s what happens…
I thought that I could take a bar of vegetable glycerin soap from Whole Foods and give it the same treatment. This is what happened when I put it in the microwave. Eeek!
I should have known better since I’m familiar with the Microwave-Ivory-Soap-Experiement, which is something to try on another day. It puffed the soap up into a stiff cloud…pretty to look at but completely useless for soap-making.
Then it was time to wrap them up.
We made our own wrapping paper. Check out Handmade Wrapping Paper with Kids for a quick tutorial on how to set this child-friendly activity up.
Good real-world practice with tape cutting, folding, and wrapping.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the beautiful, nurturing, intelligent, kind, selfless, and inspiring moms!! Moms are amazing!
Oh, that ivory soap experiment is fun, isn’t it? We had one of my sons’ birthday parties at a local science center last year and that’s one of the things they did. You’re so good to make special grandmother gifts. I swear, mothers of young children do the most work of anyone for Mother’s Day, and it’s a totally unfair system.
Ha! Yes, I can imagine it will get easier once the kids can make their own projects happen from start to finish. Happy Mother’s Day!
What a fabulous idea and Love the wrapping paper too! Looks like you had a blast! Never made soap before! That will be on our list!
It was fun, and totally held N’s attention because she gets so invested in figuring out how things work.
I think I’ll be adding it to our list as well!
If only there were time to do it all…
these are just so lovely and yummy!!! THANK YOU for giving them to us yesterday – what a treat! the rainbow wrapping is so so so pretty that i hardly want to peek inside, but now seeing how beautiful those bars look in the picture, i want to! beautifully made. i am loving your photography on this entry, rachelle (as with every entry you post!)
thanks jen! and we loved spending time with you girls, of course.
Awesome project! I feel like I missed something in regards to the rubber-stamp impression. How did you do that in the bottom of a plastic mold?
I just updated the post with a photo of this step. Thanks for asking!! And happy mother’s day.
Thanks, and the same to you 🙂
WOW! I love it and you make this look waaay too easy! haha!!!
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That’s amazing! I love the ingredients that you added. I have no idea where I would source those soap bases you speak of but I will do some googling! i love that you wrapped them in homemade paper too. Please tell me that (1). you are giving them wrapped in the lop-sided wrapping she did and (2). that you kept some for yourself?? Hope so!
beautiful. I love how she made her own wrapping paper and wrapped them. What a great job!
Who wouldn’t be happy with a present like this one! The wrapping paper is beautiful – our kids at preschool love painting in this way using droppers. We tried to make soap once, but it didn’t quite go as planned:
http://progressiveearlychildhoodeducation.blogspot.com/2009/12/soap-balls.html
I think you’ve inspired me to give it another go!
I have featured this as one of my top 3 picks today! I LOVE it 🙂
Thanks Anna!!! So exciting 🙂
What a fun and adorable project! Rachelle you never cease to amaze!! Looking forward to trying this out 🙂 I hope you have a lovely mothers day and thank you for inspiring me (and I’m sure a lot of other mums around the world) to spend more time nurturing our kids creativity.
You look like you’re having so much fun 🙂 And a wonderful finished product I must say with the wrapping!
Bllack mold may also be considered the most toxic off shapes.
It not ust kills the mold and mildew bbut additionally prevent them returning.
Keep unique guard when dealing with algae; it is acutely slippery when wet.
How long did you wait for the soap to set?
I will try this at home.
Really very good blog you should definitely check the ethix products soaps best and quality here!
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