Nature Has A Wonderful Way of Providing A Natural Cure For Many Medical Conditions.

Old home remedies are based on the premise of using the natural ingredients and constituents found in many spices, fruits, grasses and herbs to naturally treat foreign bodies, dangerous viruses and bacteria that are causing pain, inflammation, disease and damage to the body. Herbal remedies continue to increase in popularity as more people come to realise the health benefits found in natural products.

For example, many skin conditions can be relieved or even cured by using a natural soap (like goats milk) that is free from parabans and SLS. It’s not that people are against prescription medication because they definitely have their place, but more so that people are now returning to the tried and true natural cures as they realize that blindly following the path of prescription medication can have serious consequences.

The advantages of using natural cures are:

• Use natural foods.
• Side effects… What Side Effects!
• Very little risk of an allergic reaction. People generally find out early in life if they are allergic to a natural food which may constitute part of a natural cure.
• Eliminate risk. Taking drugs can often be a lottery – is there going to be a reaction to the drug, what will the long term side effects be?

There are a wide range of natural cures for abscesses to worms, and quite a few can be found right there in your own kitchen. Here are some products used as natural cures -

• Lemon
• Honey
• Aloe Vera
• Garlic
• Milk
• Tumeric
• Rose Water
• Salt

It is always important to test the natural cures to ensure you have no negative reaction to them. Most people know from an early age if they have a food allergy, so it can be as simple as avoiding any natural cures which include these products.

Visit From Nature With Love for more natural product information

There is the possibility of having all packaging from natural products. We are turning around time when long time ago there wasn’t available the chemical produced products we have now. But our skin is better in various ways if we go back to some of the ingredients used “back when” for our natural products.
Another reason for our natural products is the use of the “grey water”. With water now being such an important commodity, we need to find ways to help spread the water around when it is not coming from the sky. So in comes the use of grey water hoses. Because we can use this water on our lawns, gardens. etc, we need it to be healthy for these places and if we are using natural products in the home, we can assume the end result, our earth, is going to be healthy too. Do remember to check with your own local area authority for the guidelines on grey water.

Packaging is another big natural product user. From the outer package, we need to try to keep it recyclable and it is the recycle products that can go back again to be recycled again and again.

LDPE – Low Density Polyethylene is a most useful and widely used plastic especially in dispensing bottles or wash bottles.

A dermatitis group says the most irritating ingredient for skincare and washing products is the artificial fragrances.

Fragrances have been used for centuries with a long history of safe use. There is no legal right to disclose ingredients used in fragrances and there is a ‘little monitoring’ of compliance. So when we see “Natural” displayed on products, it can be a rather ambiguous statement. The fragrances do not have to be declared, is just one problem, for people wanting a natural product.

FromNatureWithLove.com offers a large selection of 1,750+ natural ingredients used in skin care, hair care, cosmeceutical applications, massage, aromatherapy, spa products and herbal preparations. FNWL also offers a large selection of packaging supplies, bath accessories, natural body scrubs, books and equipment.

• 312 gms olive oil
• 255 gms coconut oil
• 170 gms palm oil
• 43 gms castor oil
• 85 gms sunflower oil
• 43 gms cocoa butter
• 130 gms of lye
• 284 gmsof water
• 2 generous tablespoons of honey added at very light trace
• Fragrance and/or colour as desired

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Basic Soap Making

Soap is made by reacting fats and oils together with lye. The fats and oils may be vegetable or animal in origin and the lye may be a solution of caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) or caustic potash (potassium hydroxide) dissolved in water.

Basic Soap Making Saponification

Caustic Soda often caused alarm and concern about what these soaps were doing to your skin.
In an example of a soap reaction, coconut oil is acted upon by the caustic soda to produce a mixture of soap and glycerine – a reaction known as saponification.

A well made soap, once it has ‘saponified’ and aged properly, will not contain any caustic soda. The caustic soda will have reacted with the other ingredients in the soap and a chemical reaction would completely change its chemical structure and properties.

Glycerol is removed from commercial soaps to make them harder and last longer, as its emollient properties make it milder acting towards your skin. This is why home-made soaps retain the glycerol for its soothing properties.

Basic Soap Ingredients

There are some basic soap ingredients – lye, water, fats & oils, and additives. Additives can be emollients, exfoliants, colourants, and essential oils.

• Lye – may be a solution of caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) or caustic potash (potassium hydroxide) dissolved in water.
• Water – should be clean unpolluted rainwater/purified/bottled spring water.
• Fats & Oils – coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil, or vegetable shortening will readily give a hard soap with good lather. Other oils such as apricot kernel, sweet almond, jojoba, evening primrose, wheatgerm, avocado, shea butter, and coconut butter can be added to ‘super-fat’ the soap.
• Additives – may constitute up to ten percent by volume of the total mixture.
• Emollients – honey, lecithin, lanolin, glycerine, cocoa-butter, shea butter, vegetable oils and infused oils.
• Exfoliants – added to remove dead skin cells to keep skin smooth. Ground oats, bran, almond meal, cinnamon, corn meal, poppy seeds, pumice, and sand.
• Colourants – spices and clays make excellent colouring agents for natural soap.

• Paprika or annatto will produce light to deep apricot shades
• Tumeric will produce lemon to yellow colours
• Saffron or curry powder will produce orange to peach colours
The above colours tend to fade quite quickly.
• Cloves, cinnamon and cocoa will produce beige to chocolate colours
• Green clay, pink clay, and yellow clay will add their respective colours to the soap
• Infused carrot oil will add a golden colour to the oil.
Essential Oils – make 1 – 4% of the total mixture, dependent upon odour intensity and skin sensitivity.

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Put your pitcher onto the scale and zero out the weight. Weigh the amount of distilled water your recipe calls for.

Yes, water weighs the same by liquid or solid measure, but in soap making we weigh everything by solid measure.

Place a mason jar or other solid container onto the scale, and zero out the weight. Open your container of lye, and gently shake out the amount you need for your recipe. As soon as you have the correct measure of lye, tightly close the lid on your lye container and put it aside in a safe place.

Be careful that no stray beads or specks of lye fly up and stick to your gloves or shirt sleeves. (This is more likely in dry climates or dry weather when there is a lot of static cling.)

Care with Lye Solution

After you have weighed both the water and the lye, slowly add the lye to the pitcher of water. Be careful not to make any splashes. (You’re wearing your safety goggles, right?!)

Note: ALWAYS add the lye to the water, not the other way around. Adding the water to the lye can cause a volcano-like reaction in the pitcher.

Gently stir the mixture until the lye is completely dissolved.

The mixture will start to get hot, and may even begin to steam or make bubbling or boiling sounds. Just continue to stir until the solution is thoroughly mixed.

After stirring, put the lid on the lye solution pitcher and set it in a SAFE place to cool. The lye solution will be ready to use when it cools down to about 100 degrees.

Safety with Lye Solution

Even though the lye-solution is put aside, you still need to be safe.

• Don’t put it in a place where pets or children could knock it over.
• If there are other people in the house, make sure that your pitcher is clearly labeled with “DANGER-Lye Solution.”
• The mixture will be hot – often up to over 200 degrees. Make sure it is not near anything heat sensitive.

If there’s any one thing that keeps people from trying cold process soap making, it’s dealing with lye solution.  But look – you’ve done it, and done it safely. As long as you always follow proper safety procedures, wear your goggles and gloves, and don’t shortcut the steps, you should have no problems at all safely mixing the lye solution to use in your soap making.

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Yes, you can use liquids other than water to make the lye solution for your soap. Perhaps the most popular alternative liquid is goat’s milk which makes a lovely, creamy, moisturizing soap. Soap makers also use coconut milk and even buttermilk. You can use milks, as well as coffee, green tea, wine, and even beer. BUT you need to be extra careful.

Different liquids Other than Water can react to the lye differently than plain water. Also note, the lye will often change the liquid into a foul-smelling, brown soup, however, the smell doesn’t remain in the final soap.

For making a lye solution with tea, coffee, wine or beer (basically any clear liquid) follow the steps below.

1. Follow the general directions for Making Lye including all of the safety guidelines.
2. Place your lye pitcher inside of a roasting pan or in the sink to mix it. That way, if it does bubble over, the lye solution won’t go onto the counter or floor.
3. Make sure that your liquid is chilled before mixing the lye into it. (This isn’t a bad idea even if just using plain water.) Warm green tea and lye are a bad combination.
4. Work in an area that has very good ventilation. The fumes from the Liquids Other than Water mixture will be heavy and foul smelling.
5. If you’re working with a carbonated beverage, like beer, make sure that it is completely flat. Leave it out on the counter for several days, stirring often. Remember, absolutely, completely flat.
6. If you’re using a liquid that contains alcohol and/or a high sugar content, you may want to do a small-batch test first. Sometimes the alcohol and/or sugar content can do odd things in the soap batch. At the very least, it’s going to make the gel stage VERY hot! Don’t insulate these batches – they’ll cook quite well on their own.
7. Work very slowly, especially if this is the first time you’ve used this particular liquid in your soap. Add the lye slowly. Stir slowly.
8. Take notes! Especially note how strong the coffee or tea was.

Past that, the procedure works pretty much the same as mixing lye with plain water.

Enjoy the experimentation!

Add a Creamy Special Touch to Your Soap Recipes

Using liquids other than water to make the lye solution for your soap is possible.

Perhaps the most popular alternative liquid is goat’s milk which makes a lovely, creamy, moisturizing soap.

Others prefer coconut milk as it gives lots of creamy bubbles. Soap makers also use cow’s milk and even buttermilk.

You need to be extra careful as each liquid can react to the lye differently than plain water.

Also note, as the lye heats up, it will start to scorch the sugars in the milk and turn it brown and foul smelling.

The smell doesn’t remain in the final soap, and you can minimize the scorching with a few simple tips.

Making a lye solution with milk.

1. Follow the general directions for Making Lye including all of the safety guidelines.
2. Start with about 1/3 of your liquid in liquid form and the other 2/3 in slushy or frozen chunks form.
3. Add the liquid 1/3 to your pitcher.
4. Place your lye pitcher into the sink. Fill your sink with enough cold water and ice to almost meet the level of the milk in the pitcher. If you add too much water, your pitcher will start to float and may tip over. As you add more milk and the lye to the pitcher, you can add a bit more water and ice to the sink.
5. SLOWLY add a bit of the lye to the milk. As it starts to dissolve, it will start to heat up. Stir the solution gently.
6. Wait until the solution cools back down a bit. You don’t want the solution to get much more than about 100 degrees. So be patient!
7. Add a bit more lye. Stir. Wait.
8. Repeat, adding a bit more lye into the solution at a time, but never enough to cause the liquid to heat up considerably. As the liquid starts to heat up, add a bit of the slushy or frozen milk to the pitcher to help cool it down. (Be careful of splashing the lye solution.)
9. When you’re done adding all of the lye, add the remaining slushy or frozen milk and stir until everything is melted and blended.

The solution will inevitably turn a golden amber as it mixes and heats up. But that’s ok. It will impart that color to the soap.

Past that, the procedure works just the same as mixing lye with plain water. Be safe.

Enjoy the experimentation of Milk in Soap Making!

Equipment:-

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BASIC SOAP RECIPE
500gms hydrogenated coconut oil (copha) or olive oil
200ml purified water
70gm caustic soda
Emollients up to 20ml
Exfoliants up to 20gm
Colourants up to 20gm
Pure essential oils 7ml up to 20ml

METHOD:-
1. Weigh and measure your ingredients.
2. Fill the pyrex jug with the water.

Basic Soap Recipe Lye Making
3. Slowly add the caustic soda into the water stirring constantly. Ensure that it has dissolved properly. This solution is now called Lye
4. Leave the Lye to cool until the temperature is 35-38 degrees C. It can be made the night before and left to cool as it is easy to heat it up quickly to the correct temperature. If you decide to do this cover the container so that the solution is not weakened by contact with the night air. Otherwise, stand the jug of lye in cold water in the sink to speed up the cooling process.
5. Melt the oils and fats in the pyrex bowl and heat to 35-38 degrees C. Once again, place the bowl in a sink of cold water to adjust the temperature if required.
6. Once both mixtures reach 35-38 degrees C, pour the lye in a slow constant stream into the oils and fats while stirring constantly and smoothly at a medium pace.

Tracing in Basic Soap Recipe
7. The correct temperature is important to ensure the proper reaction occurs. If you see too much lye floating on the surface of the fats and oils, while you are pouring the lye solution, stop pouring until the lye as been incorporated properly. Continue pouring and stirring. Do not whip or beat or stir the mixture erratically at this stage.
8. You will begin to see the mixture become opaque and thicken. Using the spoon, drizzle some of the soap mixture across the surface of the soap. When the soap is thick enough to momentarily hold the drizzle on the surface of the mixture, it is ready to pour. (This is known as “ tracing”,) Note: Making soap with pure olive oil is a very slow process, it may take a day or so to thicken. However, after some initial stirring to make sure all the ingredients are well mixed, you only need to stir the soap mixture every so often throughout the day to keep it together. Ensure that the soap mixture is kept in a warm environment in the meantime.

Adding your colours & fragrances in Basic Soap Recipe
9. The stirring process can take from 15 minutes to around an hour. You can speed up the process by using and electric hand mixer. The mixture will be still warm. It is not unusual for soaps containing only vegetable oils and fats to take up to an hour. If you have been stirring for close to an hour and the soap seems well mixed, and as though it has thickened but will not hold the drizzle on the surface, it should be ready to pour.
10. Add any colours, fragrances, emollients and exfolliants in the following manner. Remove a small amount of the soap mixture from the bowl and mix your additives into it before incorporating it back into the main mixture. Ensure that the additives are mixed in thoroughly. Use an electric hand mixer to ensure on even consistency.

Your Basic Soap Recipe poured into Mould
11. Once the additives have been incorporated, pour the finished soap mixture into the mould.  Moulds you would like to reuse should be lined with cling wrap.
12. Place a lid or cover on top of the mould and wrap in several thick blankets to keep the soap warm. Put it in a warm place. You do not want a sudden drop in temperature as this will cause the soap to separate.
13. Leave your soap to solidify. This takes around 24-48 hours. Do not interfere with your sap at this time.
14. After 48 hours, remove blankets from around the mould and check on your soap. Your soap should be firm but will still be a little soft. If it is too soft, leave it in the mould unwrapped for a day or so to dry and harden.
15. Wearing rubber gloves, gently remove it from the mould. Be careful when doing this as there may be a small amount of lye surrounding the soap.
16. Place the block of soap on a clean surface. The soap will become reasonably firm over the next seven days.
17. Leave your soap to air and finish curing for about four to five weeks. A reaction will still be going on though considerably slower. You will notice a slightly powdery layer on your soap. This is sodium carbonate and can be drying to the skin. Slice this off once you have allowed your soap to finish curing.
18. Cut into bars.
19. Voila! You now have ready-to-use bars of soap.
20. Wrap soaps which you will not by using immediately in cellophane, waxed paper or cling wrap. This reduces the evaporation of any essentials and keeps the soap fresher.

For great soap making ideas, visit Soap Making Fun!

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 193 gms palm oil
• 289 gms coconut oil
• 48 gms cocoa butter
• 289 gms olive oil
• 48 gms castor oil
• 96 gms sunflower oil
• 139 gms lye
• 320 gms of very very very very flat room temperature amber or dark beer
• 2 generous tbs. of honey
• 11 gms orange essential oil
• 11 gms litsea cubea (or lemon) essential oil
• 11 gms grapefruit essential oil
• 11 gms lime essential oil

Preparation:

This Citrus recipe makes about 3 lbs (approx  1.3 kg) of soap and is formulated using a 5% superfat or lye discount. You can use any combination of citrus essential oils you like, or have on hand. The litsea cubea essential oil helps to anchor the citrus essential oils into the soap. (Citrus essential oils have a reputation for fading quickly.) I’ve also made this recipe using a lavender-orange combination, which was just as delightful.

1. Take out a bottle of beer, open it and pour it into a large pitcher. Stir it vigorously to make it bubble and foam. Put a lid on it and let it sit at room temperature on the counter for several days, stirring it once or twice a day to help it go flat quicker. Wait until the beer is completely flat to proceed.
2. Using your completely flat beer, and following the instructions in making soap with liquids other than water, make your lye solution, adding the lye to the beer very very slowly. Again, I can’t stress enough that the beer be completely flat before you make your lye solution and that you work slowly. If it’s not, and you don’t, you’ll get a lye-beer volcano erupting out of your pitcher and onto the counter and floor. (Yes…I confess…I learned this lesson the hard way!)
3. Measure out all of your oils, essential oils and colorants (if you’re using colorants, though I usually don’t.)
4. Make your soap batch as you normally would, following basic soap making instructions.
5. At trace, add in the essential oils and the honey.
6. Stir well. Add your colorants/swirl, if desired.
7. Pour into the mold of your choice. Let it saponify over night. Slice it when it’s firm enough to slice.
8. Let it cure for 3-4 weeks.
9. Enjoy your Citrus Honey Beer soap! You’ll enjoy your soap almost as much as telling people that you made homemade soap with beer in it!

Learn to make soap at Soap Making Fun – click here!

• Olive Oil = 26.5 oz / 751gms (50% of total oils)
• Coconut Oil (76 Degree) = 10.6 oz / 301gms (20% of total oils)
• Sweet Almond Oil = 6.4 oz / 181gms (12% of total oils)
• Avocado Oil = 5.3 oz / 150gms (10% of total oils)
• Castor Oil = 4.3 oz / 122gms (8% of total oils)
• Honey = 2.5 oz / 71gms
• Almond Milk = 6 oz / 170gms
• Whole Oats = 2 oz / 57gms
• Orange, sweet essential oil = 1.6 oz / 45gms
• Clove Bud essential oil = 1.1 oz / 30gms
• Distilled Water = 12 oz / 340gms
• lye = 7.3 oz / 206gms

*This recipe has a 5% super-fat.
*All measurements are weight measurements, not liquid measurements.

As you can see in the above recipe, this batch uses less distilled water to create the lye solution than normal. Typically, I would use 20 ounces (567gms) of distilled water for a 5 pound (2.268kg) batch instead of 12 ounces as shown above. The lack of distilled water in the initial lye solution will be made up for by two additional liquids in this recipe; the almond milk and honey.

Finally, let’s take a look at the step by step process for creating this batch of Honey Oatmeal Soap:

Step 1) for our first step, we are going to create the lye solution. Carefully measure out 206 grams of dry lye in a chemical safe container. I like to use a simple HDPE plastic bucket to measure out my lye.

Next, measure out your 12 ounces (340gms) of distilled water. It is important here that you use distilled water. Faucet and even filtered water can have minerals and additives in it that will have an adverse affect in your soap during the saponification reaction.

As mentioned previously, for a 5 pound recipe like this one, we would typically use 20 ounces of water instead of 12 ounces. The remaining liquid needed for this batch, however, will be made up of the almond milk and honey additives that we will be incorporating later on in this Honey Oatmeal Soap recipe.

Finally, now that your dry lye and distilled water is measured out, pour the sodium hydroxide (lye) into the water.

When the lye and water combine, you will notice that the solution will instantly heat up and a strong fume will be present. Be sure to create this solution in a well ventilated area so that you can avoid inhaling these fumes! After just a brief period of time, the fumes will no longer linger.

Now place a thermometer into your lye solution and place it safely off to the side where it won’t accidentally be knocked over. We are going to let the lye solution cool while we complete the other steps in our honey oatmeal soap recipe.

For this batch of Honey Oatmeal Soap, we want the lye solution to cool down almost to room temperature. More will be explained further down this page as to why we need the lye to be cooler than normal for this recipe.

 Honey Oatmeal Soap Oils

Step 2) now that our lye solution is created and set aside to cool, we are going to measure out our soap making oils according to the Honey Oatmeal Soap recipe above. Do this in your stainless steel soap pot.

Once all your oils are accurately measured, you can begin to melt the oils down using a low heat on your cook top.

 Honey Oatmeal Soap Additives

Step 3) while the oils melt and the lye solution continues to cool, we are going to prepare our additives needed for this Honey Oatmeal Soap recipe.

First, let’s prepare our honey. We will be incorporating honey into this soap recipe at the rate of 1/2 ounce per pound of soap. So, for a 5 pound batch, we will need to weigh out 2.5 ounces of honey. Be sure to use 100% pure honey without any additives!

We do not want to add the honey to the soap in its original viscous form. If we add the honey without thinning it out, it will be difficult to thoroughly mix it evenly into the batch and consequently your soap could have sporadic dark honey patches in it.

To dilute and thin out your honey, mix the 2.5 ounces into 3 ounces of warm distilled water. Stir until all the honey is completely dissolved.

Now set this warm honey-water off to the side for future use.

Next, we are going to prepare our almond milk. Making almond milk is very easy! Simply mix 1 part almonds to 3 parts distilled water in a blender and then strain out the pulp! You will be left with 100% pure unadulterated and very creamy almond milk.

Our Honey Oatmeal Soap recipe calls for 6 ounces of almond milk. I usually make a bit more than what is needed as it is difficult to make exactly 6 ounces of the milk as the weight changes once the pulp is removed.

So, to make sure that I have enough milk for my batch, I am going to measure out 1 cup of water and add 1/3 cup of almonds to my blender and begin to blend. This will make a tiny bit more almond milk than what we need.

Once the almonds and distilled water are thoroughly blended, strain out the pulp from the almond milk using a fine strainer. I personally like to use a paint strainer bag for this step. They work perfectly for straining nut milks! You can pick one up at almost any hardware store.

Now measure out the needed 6 ounces of almond milk.

Place the almond milk off to the side for future use.

The next additive that we will be preparing is our colloidal oatmeal. Colloidal oatmeal is simply finely ground whole oats. To create this additive, grind up the needed amount of old fashioned whole oats in a coffee grinder.

That’s all you need to do! Just make sure that you are using old fashioned 100% all natural whole oats and not quick oats. Quick oats will form a goop in your soap!

Now measure out 2 ounces of this oatmeal powder that you just created into a bowl and set aside for future use.

Finally, we need to prepare our essential oil blend. In total, we will be adding 75 grams of essential oils (approximately 2.65 ounces) to this five pound batch of soap.

Honey Oatmeal Soap Oils

For this Honey Oatmeal Soap recipe we will be creating a blend of 45 grams sweet orange essential oil and 30 grams clove bud essential oil. This aroma is truly intoxicating and a perfect match for any Honey soap recipe.

Why am I measuring in grams? When weighing out essential oils, I always like to measure in grams because this smaller unit of measurement is more accurate. 45 grams of sweet orange essential oil would equal 1.5873282855 ounces and 30 grams of clove bud essential oil would equal 1.058218857 ounces of essential oil. Obviously, unless you have an amazing/expensive scale, you won’t be able to measure in ounces to this extreme decimal consequently making your measurements less accurate. This is why I also measure my lye in grams rather than ounces, again, because it is more accurate!

I always recommend that you measure out each essential oil separately, so that if you over measure; you can always remove some of the essential oil. Obviously, this wouldn’t be possible if you are measuring out the essential oils into the same dish.

Once the sweet orange essential oil and clove bud essential oil are accurately weighed, combine the two essential oils into the same dish and set it off to the side for future use.

 Cooling the Oils

Step 4) while you were preparing all your additives so that they are completely ready to add to your batch when the time in the soap making process is right, your oils should have melted down fully.

Next we need to cool our oil mixture. Remove your stainless steel soap pot from the burner and place it in a sink filled with ice water. This will help our oils cool down to less than 90 degrees very quickly. You can also cool your lye solution using this same method.

It is extremely important when making honey soap that you “soap cool”. This means that both the oil mixture and lye solution should be close to room temperature before you start combining the ingredients to make soap.

The natural sugars in honey will cause your batch to heat up excessively during saponification. To offset this occurrence, and keep the soap from overheating, you need to combine your oils and lye mixture at a much cooler temperature than normal. If the soap gets too hot, it can result in unsightly cosmetic flaws.

Because we made the lye solution in the very beginning of this tutorial it should be substantially cooled down by now. If it is still too warm though, you can use the same “ice bath method” as explained above to cool the lye.

Step 5) we are getting really close now to finally making soap. We just need to complete one last important step before we can combine all the ingredients. You need to prepare your mold!

Because this is a Honey Oatmeal Soap recipe, I really want my bars to have a honeycomb appearance to them. I think that this unique styling will add a really cool creative aspect to my finished product.

To create this honeycomb soap bar style, simply take a piece of bubble wrap, cut it to size, and lay it on the bottom of your tray soap mold. Be sure that the bubbles are facing upwards so that when you pour your soap, the soap solidifies around the bubbles.

As you will see at the very end of this tutorial, we will be placing another piece of bubble wrap onto the top of the soap to create an identical effect on both sides of each bar. Be sure to cut an extra piece of bubble wrap to the size of your mold so that you can accomplish this last step!

For this tutorial, I am using the soap making resource 5 pound acrylic slab soap mold. This slab mold design makes it very easy to complete the honeycomb styling technique as shown above. It is a bit harder to do with a log soap mold.

 Ready to make Honey Oatmeal Soap

Step 6) At this point, your lye solution and oils mixture should be at right around room temperature, your additives should be ready for pouring and your soap mold should be completely prepared with bubble wrap lining the bottom. We are finally ready to make soap!

Slowly pour the lye solution into your oils mixture and stir manually with a silicone or stainless steel mixing utensil. Don’t get out the stick blender just yet!

Keep stirring manually for just a few minutes until your soap is an even color and texture. Now, while your soap is still very thin, pour in your almond milk.

Immediately after pouring the almond milk into your soap, dump in your honey/water mixture.

It is somewhat important that you pour the almond milk and honey/water mixture into your batch before the soap gets too thick. These two liquid additives are making up for our lack of water in the lye solution and consequently should be added very soon after you pour the lye solution into the oils. Also, the honey can speed up trace significantly, so if you wait too long, your soap can seize up on you and solidify in the pot once you add the honey.

Some soap makers will add the milk and honey to the lye solution itself and then pour the entire mixture into the soap making oils. I, however, do not like that method.

Unfortunately, if you add the honey directly to the lye solution, the sugars in the honey can cause the solution to “volcano” and overflow. This usually only happens when the lye solution is still warm, but why take the risk?

Keep mixing your soap batch with the newly added almond milk and honey manually until you once again have an even color and texture.

We are not using our stick blender just yet because honey soaps tend to trace very quickly. Mixing your batch with a stick blender will only speed this up. We still have a few more additives to add, so we don’t want the soap prematurely hardening up on us!

Next, add your pre-measured colloidal oatmeal and continue to stir manually.

Finally, add your sweet orange and clove bud essential oil blend.

At this point, if your Honey Oatmeal Soap is still thin, you can feel free to start mixing with your stick blender to speed up the trace.

Once your Honey Oatmeal Soap starts to thicken up, test it for trace. You can test for trace by dribbling a small amount of soap onto the surface of your batch. If the soap sets on top of the rest of your batch for a brief moment before sinking back into the mixture, then you know you have reached trace. Your soap will probably be about the consistency of mayonnaise.

 Pouring your Honey Oatmeal Soap

Step 7) once you have successfully reached trace, pour the batch into your bubble wrap lined mold.

Step 8 ) once all the soap is poured into the mold, it is time to do a little more styling. Place your second piece of bubble wrap, if desired, onto the top of the soap to give both sides a honeycomb appearance.

If you own and are using a soap making resource acrylic slab mold be sure to leave the bar dividers out of the mold until the very end so that the bubble wrap will be able to penetrate the top of the soap.

I actually like to carefully remove this top layer of bubble wrap after a few hours so that I can add some extra oatmeal and honey to the top of my Honey Oatmeal Soap while the soap is still wet. I just love the look that this gives!

What I do is lightly sprinkle whole oats onto the top of my soap.

Then I gently drizzle the honey in a diagonal pattern across all the bars.

You don’t need to smother the soap with extra oatmeal and honey. The purpose is simply to give your bar even more of a decorative flair. A little goes a long way so be sure to use your artistic eye!

Step 9) Finally, if you are using the Soap Making Resource acrylic slab soap mold, insert the bar dividers and place your completed soap in a safe area to cure.

Because of the honey in this recipe, the soap still has a tendency to overheat even though we kept all our soap making ingredients cool. To keep the heat from building, don’t put the lid on your mold and do not insulate with towels or blankets. Additionally, you can place the entire batch into your freezer to keep the temperature down! We want to do everything we can to keep the heat from building up too much.

Step 10) after 24 hours, or once the soap is satisfactorily solidified, you can remove it from the mold. If you are using the Soap Making Resource acrylic slab soap mold, this will be easy as each bar is preformed via the dividers. All you have to do is simply pop out each perfect little bar from the mold.

If you are using a soap making resource log soap mold, you can always use a guided soap cutter to evenly slice your bars.

Take each bar and set on a rack to cure. Every week or two, flip the bars so that all sides are exposed to the air at one point or another.

After just a few short weeks, your bars will be extremely hard and ready to give away, sell or, of course, hoard for yourself!