Melt and pour soap bases offer a convenient and accessible way to create beautiful and functional soap bars. However, with a little creativity and the addition of various additives, you can elevate your melt and pour soap to a whole new level, adding unique properties, textures, and visual appeal.
This guide will explore a variety of additives that can be incorporated into your melt and pour soap, along with their benefits and considerations for use.
Types of Additives for Melt and Pour Soap:
- Essential Oils and Fragrance Oils: These oils provide fragrance to your soap, allowing you to create custom scents that suit your preferences or evoke specific moods. Consider the therapeutic properties of essential oils when selecting your fragrance.
- Nourishing Oils and Butters: Adding nourishing oils and butters, such as coconut oil, shea butter, or cocoa butter, can enhance the moisturizing and skin-conditioning properties of your soap. These ingredients also add a luxurious lather and creamy texture.
- Colorants: Melt and pour soap bases are available in a variety of colors, but you can further customize the appearance of your soap by adding natural or synthetic colorants. Popular options include mica powders, oxides, and clays.
- Herbs and Spices: Incorporating dried herbs and spices into your soap can add visual interest, exfoliating properties, and even therapeutic benefits. Consider adding chamomile flowers for a calming effect, lavender for relaxation, or turmeric for its antioxidant properties.
- Clays: Clays, such as kaolin clay, bentonite clay, and rhassoul clay, can add color, exfoliating properties, and even cleansing benefits to your soap. They can also help to absorb excess oil and impurities from the skin.
Considerations for Using Additives:
- Compatibility: Ensure that the additives you choose are compatible with the specific melt and pour soap base you are using. Some additives may react with certain ingredients or affect the soap’s properties.
- Safety: Always research the safety of any additives you intend to use in your soap. Some essential oils, for example, can be irritating or phototoxic.
- Dosage: Use additives in moderation, following recommended guidelines to avoid compromising the soap’s structure or causing skin irritation.
- Testing: It’s always advisable to test your soap recipe on a small batch before making a large quantity to ensure the desired results and safety.
Examples of Additive Combinations:
- Calming and Moisturizing: Lavender essential oil, chamomile flowers, and shea butter
- Exfoliating and Detoxifying: Turmeric powder, bentonite clay, and ground oatmeal
- Invigorating and Refreshing: Peppermint essential oil, green tea leaves, and spirulina powder
- Luxurious and Hydrating: Rose geranium essential oil, rose petals, and cocoa butter
Conclusion:
By incorporating various additives into your melt and pour soap, you can create unique and personalized soap bars that cater to specific needs and preferences. Experiment with different combinations of additives to discover what works best for you and your customers. Remember to prioritize safety and compatibility, and always test your recipes before producing large batches. With a little creativity and experimentation, you can elevate your melt and pour soap to a whole new level of artistry and functionality.
HOW TO USE MELT AND POUR SOAP
First, put the selected soap base on a sanitized cutting board and use a large, clean knife to cut it into small pieces.
After that, put the chunks in a spotless, microwave- or double-boiler-safe container. To avoid the base overheating or boiling, heat the soap in short bursts of 30 seconds or 1 minute at a time, stirring gently in between. Continue heating and stirring the soap until it has completely liquefied. The entire melting process for a two-pound brick of soap will take about five minutes. Because the final melted base will probably be above 80 გC (180 ᵒF), handling it needs to be done with extra caution.
It is now possible to add ingredients to the melted soap base, such as colors, scents, and botanicals (see the chart below for suggested usage amounts). Once more, it’s crucial to gently stir them in to avoid too many bubbles, but once the soap has been poured into the mold, you can get rid of them with a quick mist of rubbing alcohol.
The soap base can be fully mixed with the desired additives before being poured into silicone molds of your choosing. Avoid using molds made of glass or metal as these materials can make it challenging to remove the finished products. The mold can be allowed to cool to room temperature after it has been filled.
The soap in the molds should ideally harden enough in 4-6 hours so that it can be removed. If not, the molds can be refrigerated for ten to fifteen minutes to speed up the hardening process; however, this should be avoided if at all possible. Once unmolded, the soap bars will be ready to use. Any flaws can be neatly and carefully cut away with a knife or smoothed down with a cloth. To further cut a large soap loaf into smaller pieces, turn the loaf onto its side (avoid cutting from the top down) and slice the loaf vertically on its side with a large knife or soap cutter.
The last Melt and Pour soap bars should be wrapped right away in non-porous material like film or cling wrap. A Glycerin soap bar is prone to sweating and shrinking if it is not wrapped.
Lastly, store Melt and Pour soaps in a cool, dry location both before and after using them in the shower.
See how simple and quick it is to make Melt and Pour soaps by watching the video below:
HOW LONG DOES MELT AND POUR SOAP LAST?
Melt and Pour soaps should not be left out in the open as this will cause the water in the bar to continue evaporating and cause it to shrank or dissolve. Instead, they should be stored indoors for 4-6 weeks, depending on usage frequency and adherence to care instructions. Because of this, it’s best to take the soap out of the shower after every use.
Guide to Melt & Pour Soap Making | Bramble Berry Basics of Soap Making
FAQ
What can I mix in melt and pour soap?
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ADDITIVE TYPE
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SUGGESTED USAGE AMOUNT
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Baking Soda
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N/A
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Humectants Raw Honey, Aloe Vera Gel
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½ teaspoon to 6 teaspoons
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Food Coloring
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N/A
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Vanilla Extract and Oils with Vanillin
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2% of formula
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What not to add to melt and pour soap?
What can I add into soap?
Do I need to add anything to melt and pour soap?
Can you add additional ingredients to a soap base?
Choosing unique, effective additives will set your handcrafted soaps apart. Crafter’s Choice Melt & Pour Soap Base accepts between 4% – 6% additional ingredients per one (1) ounce of soap. For example, if you have 2 pounds (32 oz) of soap base, you can add up to 2 oz of additional ingredients [2 oz is 6% of 32 oz].
What can I add to my soap?
You can also try bases with additives like shea butter, goat milk, or aloe vera. Find all the bases here, and learn more about them in this blog post. Fragrance: You can scent your soap with fragrance oils or essential oils. A general usage rate is about 0.3 oz. of scent per pound of soap.
What is MP soap base?
MP Soap Base stands for Melt and Pour Soap Base. This is a special type of soap that has been designed to be melted, crafted and formulated to accept water based additives. When it re-hardens it is ready to use. Some MP Soap Base formulas are all natural and meets the FDA and public definition of soap.
How much essential oil do you add to melt & pour soap?
Most melt and pour soap recipes use ~3% fragrance or essential oil, leaving room for 1-3% additional ingredients. Generally, you should add no more than 1% of each additional (non-fragrance/essential oil) ingredient. Our Tea Tree & Peppermint Melt and Pour Soap is made with awesome additives like tea tree essential oil and white kaolin clay.