Squeaky Clean!

Yesterday we made soap! Why I hear you all ask? Little Green wanted to make something for Christmas presents this year. Little Green really likes to make things. 
Don't get too excited we did not make it from scratch. After reading up on it a bit I felt nervous of the chemicals involved, so we bought large blocks of soap base to add our own lovely things to.
​As a starter point this was great and luckily we have lots of lavender, mint, sage, geranium, roses (petals) etc. in our garden. We picked some last week and dried them out in bunches or in kitchen paper over heaters.  We use aromatherapy oils quite a lot in the house medicinally, for cleaning and for relaxation so they were very handy too. 
​The blocks of soap that we used were Stephenson Personal Care Crystal Argan Oil, SLES SLS & Paraben Free with no scent. This was important for me as recently it has been difficult to find any soap, shower gel or shampoo that does not set off some kind of allergic reaction.
​It melted very easily and all the ingredients we added mixed in evenly. The best thing was that everything we added was  natural  including some lovely organic herbal teas. It made some very nice soap that did not cause any allergic reaction for me.
​We used silicon moulds for our soap but you could use silicon cupcake cases or a even a loaf tin and cut soap slices.

​It is  a very simple process. 
​Cut off the amount of soap you want to make from the block.
Weigh or Guess-timate your choice!
​Pop it in a pan.
​Keep it on a very low heat.
​Add your ingredients. (For this batch we used Chamomile Tea & Lavender)
Once it is completely melted and your ingredients are stirred through,
Pour into your moulds a little at a time,
Layering up and trying to split soap evenly between moulds.
​It sets really quickly.

​More specific instruction should be enclosed with your soap or they are available online at Stephenson Personal Care. You cannot buy direct from the supplier (unless bulk) but a selection of their products are available on Amazon and HobbyCraft.