Tag: soap recipe

Easy AHA exfoliating melt and pour soap recipe (variations for all skin types)!

This recipe is super-easy and so good for skin, especially in wintertime when dryness can be an issue. It seems like the combination of leggings, hot air indoors and going out on cold wintry days can cause skin to become flaky.

Add to that, on a cold day, no one wants to spend time moisturizing when they get out of the shower. I know at this time of year I’m so busy and cold, my skincare routine always goes right out of the window!

If you need to know how to get started with soapmaking, go here. Otherwise, read on and find out how to make an AHA exfoliating melt and pour soap. This recipe makes 1 bar of soap that should fit into a rectangular silicone soap mould, so scale it up to suit your needs.

Ingredients:

10 ml Cherry kernel oil

90g Melt and pour soap base

1 ml Cherry blossom fragrance

A pinch of sliced up loofah

Method (makes 1 soap weighing 100g):

  1. Cut about 90g (3 oz) of soap base from the block of melt and pour base. Chop the base finely and place into a glass jug.
  2. Heat the soap base in the microwave or place the jug in a pan of boiling water until all the base has melted.
  3. Add 10ml cherry kernel oil and about 0.5ml of fragrance.
  4. Mix in the sliced up loofah for extra exfoliating power. Once it’s all stirred up, pour into a soap mould and wait for it to harden.

How it works:

The cherry kernel oil is a natural AHA exfoliator, that helps get rid of dead skin cells on the surface of your face and body, increasing cell turnover and ditching dry skin.

Most AHA ingredients found in shop-bought products are chemically derived, whereas the cherry kernel oil retains its moisturizing properties, making it perfect for exfoliating dry winter skin!

The loofah helps speed up the exfoliating process by physically removing any dead skin (the stuff that can sometimes flake when you’re drying off after a shower).

An advantage of melt and pour soap is there’s no lye to handle, so this recipe is safe to make around pets or children. Having said that, be sure not to let them eat the finished product or any of the ingredients!

You can probably turn this into a cold process soap recipe, if you’re the sort of person who likes to customize every last ingredient in a soap recipe, but if, like me, you’re more excited about the finished product than the process taken to get there, melt and pour is a great choice!

Any melt and pour soap base will work fine with this recipe. I prefer the goat’s milk one but obviously, if you’re vegan, you would want to avoid that. The standard SLS/SLES free Stephenson’s melt and pour soap base is always a good choice, but there are so many choices for melt and pour soap bases, you’re bound to find one which becomes your favorite!

Variations:

Combination skin (oily and dry)? If you want this recipe to work better on oily skin, switch the fragrance oil for tea tree oil instead. The tea tree oil will help with hard-to-clean blocked pores and encourage spots to clear.

Super-dry, sensitive skin? Add 10ml avocado oil to this recipe, use no fragrance at all, halve the amount of loofah and be sure to use your usual cream(s) after the shower. Avocado oil is super-hydrating without being greasy or weighing your skin down (there’s nothing worse than feeling shiny after a shower, is there?) and many people with extremely dry skin find fragrance oils can dry them out even more, so making it unscented will help, too. By reducing the amount of loofah, you still get rid of dead skin cells but without causing irritation.

Oily skin? Add 1/4 tsp of French Red Clay (ultraventilated) and switch the fragrance oil for tea tree oil. The French red clay will help control oil production from your pores, and draw impurities out of them, while the tea tree oil will help with problem spot areas.

Did you try this recipe? Let me know in the comments!

Easy breastmilk soap recipe

Do you have excess breastmilk or oversupply of breastmilk? Perhaps you are looking for a way to preserve your breastmilk or turn it into a beautiful gift? If you’re anything like me, after six months or a year of breastfeeding, you have a freezer full of breastmilk and you want to do something with that liquid gold!

A breastmilk pendant is a beautiful idea but let’s be fair, it doesn’t use much of that milk. You’ll still have boatloads of the stuff left!

In New York beauty salons, breastmilk is seen as the “miracle ingredient” that can work wonders for your skin. People pay hundreds of dollars for breastmilk facials. Midwives often tell new mothers to put breastmilk on their sore nipples in the early days because of its amazing moisturising properties.

I have so much milk sitting around. I tried giving it away to hungry babies three months ago, and I didn’t get any takers in my small country. Instead, I decided to try turning it into various beauty products. Some came out better than others. Don’t make the mistakes I did. If you’re looking for a really quick and easy thing to do with your leftover breastmilk, here’s a fabulous simple melt and pour breastmilk soap recipe.

It uses something called melt and pour soap base, which is ready made for you to turn into soap. All you have to do is follow this easy breastmilk recipe to get the most creamy and cleansing bars of soap you ever tried! It’s also sulphate free and paraben free!

You will need:

A silicone soap mould I have these ones but you can get identical ones in the US here.

Stephenson’s melt and pour SLS free soap base available in the US here or here in the UK.

A microwaveable or heat proof glass jug (you need at least 500ml/1 pint, available here in the US and here in UK but they’re cheaper in Tesco if you’re near one).

A spatula for mixing (any non-metal spatula or wooden spoon will work).

A sharp knife to cut the soap base (any kitchen knife will be fine as long as it hasn’t blunted and the handle is safely attached to the blade).

Breastmilk.

The soap base is sold in boxes of 1kg and if you wanted to turn all of it into breastmilk soap you would need 500ml of breastmilk, but do not worry if you have less breastmilk. To make it as easy as possible, I’ve done this in 250g blocks of melt and pour soap base, which is a quarter of a tub and will fill your soap mould.

Method:

  1. Cut the 1kg block of Stephenson’s melt and pour SLS free organic soap base into quarters with a knife
  2. Taking one quarter of the soap base (roughly 250 grams), chop it into small squares and melt it in a glass jug in the microwave or put the glass jug into a pan of hot water just like you would if you were melting chocolate to make chocolate krispy cakes. Microwave on a low heat (I go for the lowest setting) for about 2 mins, check, then put it back in, checking every 30 seconds to 1 minute until it’s melted.
  3. Once the soap base is melted, add 125ml of cold (but not frozen) breastmilk and stir it well to get it all to mix.
  4. Pour your mixture into your soap mould. You can put it into the fridge to solidify faster, but don’t leave it more than an hour as melt and pour soap base contains glycerin which will start to draw moisture out of your fridge and make the soaps less solid!
  5. Once your soaps have solidified, turn them out and wrap them. Most people advocate putting them in plastic wrap such as saran wrap, but I prefer beeswax paper or baking paper as these are better for the environment.
  6. Use your soap! I found this to be super-moisturizing compared to store-bought soaps.

I love this straightforward and easy breastmilk soap recipe but I have made a few others, too, which I will post in the future.

breastmilk soap1