Making melt and pour soap, scented with orange and jasmine essential oil, is incredibly simple.
I love scented soaps, and used to enjoy buying nice soaps in the UK. However, shopping opportunities are very limited around us here. We have 3 small local stores within about 15 minutes’ drive, or we do the hour car run to Lidl or Intermarche. The selection of soaps is very small and certainly doesn’t satisfy my need for a variety of fragrant and luxurious soap.
Not being prepared to settle for this situation I decided to start making my own. This is often the conclusion I come to living out here. There are lots of things I would have to do without if I didn’t make my own. I always enjoy the process of learning something new and making our lives a little bit more comfortable. It was the same for my husbands shower gel – make it myself or buy the only shower gel available which smelt horrid and was very harsh on the skin.
Melt and pour soap
To begin with I decided to try out melt and pour soap making. I though it was a good way to start as it is so simple. You just need to melt the soap base in a bowl over a pan of hot water. You let it cool slightly then add essential oils, and finally pour into molds to cool and set. I bought my soap base from Amazon.
Adding essential oils
The trickiest bit of the process is choosing and adding the essential oils. I have to admit I was at a bit of a loss to start with. What scents would work, should I combine scents, how much oil should I add? After a bit of research and trying out different scent combinations for soaps, I think this has to be my favorite. For my orange and jasmin soap I used just 2 essential oils. To 1lb of melt and pour soap base I added 2.5 tsp of sweet orange essential oil and 1.5 tsp of jasmine essential oil. I found this gave me a scent that was not too overpowering, and still fragrant and floral.
When I was happy with the scent I carefully poured the soap into a silicone mould. I let this set for a few hours then turned out the soaps and voila! Lovely, luxurious soaps – plenty to keep me going for the next few weeks.
I’m hoping to find more lovely scent combinations for handmade soaps, so if you have any suggestions please do let me know!
