With soap available in neatly wrapped bars at every grocery and pharmacy, it might seem unnecessary to make your own. Despite the extra bit of effort, soap making is a fun and creative pursuit that allows you to control the ingredients that go into your bath products and target your unique skin needs. Learning to make soap requires just a few basic skills and materials, but learning from an experienced soap maker will help you get up to speed a lot faster than if you just practice on your own.
What is Soap Making?
The earliest soap making dates back at least 5,000 years to Bronze Age Mesopotamia, where ancient texts describe making soap from the resin of fir trees. The Babylonians and Egyptians expanded on these techniques by using plant ash, oils, and animal fat to produce soaps much like the products we use now – when combined with water and agitated they lathered and removed dirt. After a drop in popularity during medieval times, when unsanitary conditions helped fuel the devastation of the Black Death, soap’s use rebounded by the sixth century CE when it came into favor with European royalty, and broad use quickly followed.
Soap’s cleaning properties stem from its unique chemistry. Soap molecules link up with dirty, germ-laden oils on your skin and the fatty membranes of bacteria and viruses, lifting them off and allowing them to wash away. This attraction to oils is also what cleans your dirty dishes and your soiled laundry. Whether it’s made in a factory or your kitchen, soap is created when fat or oil is mixed with a base like lye, resulting in a reaction called saponification. You can make your own soap using either a hot process or cold process method or the simpler melt and pour method, and customize it with your preferred oils, fats, plants, and fragrances.
Benefits of Learning Soap Making?
Making soap is easy once you get the hang of it, and it affords you endless creativity with your bath bars. You can make products that soothe your skin, aid in relaxation, or smell heavenly. Pour your raw soap into uniquely shaped molds, or spread it into slabs and cut it into chic rustic bars. Luxuriate in gentle, skin-nourishing lather in the bath, and delight your friends and family with customized gifts.
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Step-by-step recipes simplify soap making. With a small dive into chemistry – don’t worry if that was never your best subject – you can create your own soap formulas, and the possibilities are limitless. Learning soap making offers more than the joy of creating beautiful and functional products. You can connect with a whole community of fellow enthusiasts, explore entrepreneurial ventures, and embrace a more sustainable lifestyle.
Live Sustainably
Natural soap is an eco-friendly alternative to commercial products that may contain chemicals and synthetic fragrances. Your handmade soap is free of wasteful packaging and minimizes its carbon footprint since it doesn’t need a long truck ride to the store. You can make your soap environmentally friendly with natural ingredients like coconut oil, avocado oil, and olive oil, and incorporate organic botanical fragrances and add-ins. The Sustainability Project says that using bar soap is the easiest and simplest switch you can make to reduce your waste on a daily basis.
Organic Cold Process Soap Making Intensive Workshop at Back Porch Soap Company in NYC teaches you how to use plants and other organic, natural ingredients to make soap from scratch using the cold process method. Explore locally grown produce, honey from the farmer’s market, or wildcrafted elements from nature, and create your own batch of botanical soap from your inspiration.
Make your bath an at-home getaway with organic, natural, or medicinal soaps. In Soap Making for Beginners at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California, you’ll learn to use colors, molds, fragrances, essential oils, extracts, herbs, and novelties to make beautiful handmade glycerine soaps. Custom-made soaps are gentle for your sensitive skin and make treasured gifts. Plus, they look beautiful in your bathroom.
Express Your Creativity
Creativity is about more than making something pretty. It’s a proven mood-lifter—people who are creative every day report greater happiness. Creativity improves your self-confidence and boosts your brain connections. Participating in creative activities with groups increases your social connections and the act of being creative helps to alleviate stress and anxiety. With all of these benefits, shouldn’t you make time in your day for a creative hobby?
Soap making is endlessly unique and creative, with many methods and ingredients to choose from. In online Soap Making from Los Angeles City College, you’ll create soaps that use your chosen colors, molds, fragrances, essential oils, extracts, herbs, and novelties. Make your bath an at-home getaway when you add these beautiful and fragrant glycerin soaps that you make yourself. Making these beautiful soaps is easy and expressing your creativity is part of the fun.
Enjoy a Fun Hobby
It’s easy to let tasks fill up your day, but when was the last time you stopped to do something just because it’s fun? While happiness is a state of mind, fun is something you do. Happiness researchers define fun as doing something active and intentional, that includes other people, is something you choose for yourself, and that transcends your ordinary day.
Sure, making soap is productive and mentally engaging, but it’s also just plain fun. When you take a class, you can get to know others who share your new hobby and try your hand at various techniques and styles. Melt & Pour Soap-Making Workshop at Love & Make in Houston is a fun-filled workshop that teaches you the basics of melt and pour soapmaking. You’ll learn the basic techniques, a little bit of history, and how to use various ingredients. Create your own designs using the fragrance, colors, and molds you choose, and add luxurious skincare ingredients like oils, clays, and botanicals.
Start a Business
Do you dream of being a business owner? Many soap artisans successfully take their kitchen creations to market. In fact, the global handmade soap market is valued at nearly $148 million and growing, and the online marketplace Etsy features almost 158,000 handmade soaps for sale. The national Handcrafted Soap & Cosmetic Guild is a community of handcrafted soap, cosmetic, and candle makers that offers benefits like skill building, community, and financial resources. Their annual conference offers certifications and classes where you can grow your skills and get inspired by other soap makers.
Organic Skincare, Soap and Candle Making Diploma Course at Back Porch Soap Company in NYC will help you get your indie beauty business off the ground. This intensive course is perfect for entrepreneurs who already own a business or budding entrepreneurs who want to create a bath and beauty business. You’ll get five hands-on workshops in soap making, candle making, and skincare products, a private strategy session with an industry expert, and a bonus recorded webinar on "How to Launch and Grow a Bath & Body Business."
How to Start Learning Soap Making
When you are getting started with soap making, you’ll need a space that is easy to clean and has a heat source like a stove or hot plate. Assemble a set of pots and utensils that you will only use for soap, not for food. You’ll need the following supplies to begin making soap:
- Kitchen scale
- Infrared laser thermometer, or candy thermometer
- Immersion blender (stick blender)
- Containers for measuring and mixing lye, made of stainless steel or heavy-duty plastic
- Containers for mixing the soap batter; any material except aluminum or non-stick surface
- Heavy duty plastic or silicone spoons and spatulas
- Gloves and goggles
- Soap molds
Some extra materials that make the task easier or offer creative effects include:
- Mesh teaspoon – make pencil line designs by sifting colorant over soap layers
- Strainer with funnel – for straining infused oils and herbal teas
- Coffee grinder – grind oats, dried herbs and flowers, and other soap making additives
- Steel wire soap cutter – ensures perfectly sized bars every time
- Soap stamps – a fun way to embellish your soaps
You can make soap with a melt-and-pour process, cold process, or hot process. Each has its advantages and drawbacks, but all yield a unique hand-crafted soap that you’ll be proud of.
Melt-and-pour soap making is the easiest method to get started with because you don’t have to worry about working with lye or achieving saponification. Save your summer garden to enjoy all year by incorporating it into handmade, naturally moisturizing glycerin soaps. Soapmaking Workshop at New York Botanical Garden in NYC uses the melt and pour process to include fragrances of dried herbs and essential oils, like lavender, rosemary, and mint, into four luscious bars of soap you can take home with you.
Virtual Melt & Pour Soap-Making Workshop online with Love & Make is a live, virtual workshop that covers the basics of melt-and-pour soap making. You’ll go through the use and benefits of each ingredient and take recipes home that you can use at home or give as gifts. Online classes provide real-time instruction in soap making, but you won’t have the chance to meet soap making enthusiasts in your area or watch demonstrations in-person.
Cold process soap making allows great flexibility for mixing in additives and creating swirls and embedded designs. You’ll blend your ingredients with a stick blender until they reach a state called “trace, ” and pour the thin solution into a mold or bar. Cold process soap takes up to 48 hours to saponify in the mold, and another four to six weeks to fully cure. Finished cold process soap has a smooth, shiny appearance.
In Cold Process Soap Making Class at Back Porch Soap Company in NYC, you’ll learn all the ins and outs of making soap with the cold process method, like how to work with lye safely, how to formulate a great soap recipe, and where to buy supplies. You can incorporate plants and other organic materials into your soap, and choose your favorite colorants and essential oils.
Soap Making—Cold Process Method at El Camino College in Torrance, California covers the cold process soap making method from A-to-Z, so you can make beautiful handmade soaps right in your kitchen. Regardless of whether you are an experienced soapmaker or a complete beginner, you’ll have fun and learn something new about making soap at home.
Hot process soap is mixed and heated in a slow cooker, which helps the batter go through saponification more quickly. You’ll add fragrance or essential oils later, and the resulting soap has a rustic appearance. It’s difficult to add swirls and designs to hot process soap because the batter is so much thicker. Hot process soap is ready to use as soon as it hardens, though letting it set up for an additional week will make the bar last longer in use.
In the Natural Soapmaking Workshop at Chamak Academy in Missouri, Texas, you’ll learn how to use hot process, cold process, and melt and pour methods to create customized soap for your hands, body, or face. Explore skin-loving ingredients, incorporate botanicals and essential oils, and understand how to use scent properly.
Once you start making soap, you might want to explore creating all kinds of natural body products. These are easy and relaxing projects that round out your supply of cleansers and balms.
Organic Body Butters, Scrubs and Balms at Back Porch Soap Company in NYC is a fun and relaxing class that teaches you how to make your own botanical skincare products. You’ll learn to create organic lotion bars, healing herbal balms, and emulsified sugar body scrubs that keep your skin healthy. Connect with nature as you formulate products using natural materials like botanicals and herbs. You’ll go home with a beautiful set of skincare products and the knowledge to continue your crafting journey on your own. This class is suitable for both beginners and advanced makers, and aromatherapists, massage therapists, spa owners, and beauty entrepreneurs will find this workshop useful.
How to Make Your Own Bath Products at Mt. San Antonio College is a fun, hands-on class where you’ll master simple techniques for making chemical-free, all-natural hand soap, kitchen soap, shampoo, shower gel, bubble bath, bath salt, and exfoliate. Learn about ingredients and equipment, where to obtain supplies, tips for making bath gels, how to add herbs and extracts, and the therapeutic effects of aromatic oils.
Virtual Bath Bomb Making is a live, virtual workshop offered by Love & Make. This class will guide you through the sometimes-tricky process of making your own bath bombs. You’ll use the Love & Make Bath Bomb DIY kit, which is available to order from their online shop, or assemble your own materials prior to the event. Ensure you have a reliable internet connection and a web-enabled device with a microphone to attend this class.
Key Takeaways
- Learning soap making is a fun and endlessly creative hobby.
- Soap making allows you to create hand-made, all-natural bars that are healthy for your skin and sustainable for the environment.
- Choose from melt and pour, cold process, or hot process soap making, depending on your skills, time, and workspace.
- Contact Coursehorse to learn soap making in-person or online, or schedule a private group session for your business or event.