Handmade, Homemade Soap Recipes: The Art of Natural Soap Making

Enlarge Image Image Gallery "Soapmaking the Natural Way" offers the fundamental techniques of soap making as well as more than 45 melt-and-pour recipes using herbs, flowers and essential oils. Photo Courtesy Lark Crafts

The following is an excerpt from Soapmaking the Natural Way: 45 Melt-and-Pour Recipes Using Herbs, Flowers and Essential Oils by Rebecca Ittner (Lark Crafts, 2010). This excerpt is from the Introduction. 

Crafters have many interpretations of the term “natural soap crafting.” On one end of the spectrum, it can mean using only organic, chemicalfree ingredients including soap bases, additives, colorants, and fragrances. On the other end, “natural” can mean simply avoiding animal- or petroleum-based products. For purposes of this book, “natural” means avoiding all animal- and petroleum-based products, synthetic colorants, and fragrances.

To keep the process accessible, I have included melt-and-pour soap bases that contain some additives, because they’re widely available in craft stores. The majority of ingredients used in this book—from herbs, dried flowers, and sea salt to milk powders, spices, and essential oils—can be found at craft, grocery, or health food stores. The exceptions to this include clays and colored mica powders. These are inexpensive and can easily be found on the Internet. Mica powders fall in a gray area in the definition of natural. They start out as natural minerals that are mined and ground into powder; synthetic colorants are then added to the powders. I’ve included mica powders in a few of the projects to show the range of colors they can provide.

Regardless of the interpretation, natural does not mean boring. Beautiful, wonderfully scented soaps can be created with natural ingredients. Mother Nature has gifted us with a wealth of natural colorants and exfoliators. Essential oils, made from plants and botanicals, provide unlimited possibilities for scent combinations.