Laura's Daily Madness: Making Valentine Soap!

This weekend I learned:

a 2 year old has an attention span exactly 4 homemade Valentine’s long

a cup makes great baby entertainment while you make the 4 Valentine’s

Baby knits make me want to be pregnant again

AND I learned how to make my own Valentine’s soap!

I am no Martha Stewart, people, so if I can make adorable little soaps, so can you!

Ingredient list:

wax paper

measuring cup

heart cookies cutters

loaf pan

microwave

32 oz of soap (Michaels 9.99, use a 40% off coupon)

box of soap dies (Michael’s 2.99)

First you are going to line your loaf pan. If you have more then one loaf pan, all the better! This project will go much faster that way. Go ahead and line 2 if you’ve got them.

Next you are going to need 1/2 pound of the soap. Mine was 32 oz so it was 2lbs so 1/4 of that. Cut it out using a knife and then cut each cube apart so they resemble ice cubes. Place into your measuring cup.

Put your measuring cup into the microwave and follow the directions on your soap package for melting. Mine was 40 seconds and then 10 seconds until melted. You have to sort of stir/cut up the chunks that gather in the center.

Pour melted soap into the loaf pan. Make sure your wax paper doesn’t get down and stick to the top of the melted soap. Press down on the paper and angle the loaf pan from side to side to allow the mixture to settle more evenly. It doesn’t matter if its not into every corner of the loaf pan but you do want it more spread out. Set your timer for 15 minutes and allow it to cool.

If you have a separate loaf pan, you can go ahead and get your second batch of soap melted too. If you don’t have a second loaf pan, you need to wait for the first one to be done and then make your second batch.

After 15 minutes, lift the wax paper out of the loaf pan and set aside.

Go ahead and make your second batch of soap the same way. This time we are going to dye it before pouring it into the loaf pan so after its all melted we are going to add in our red.

This is what I got 10 drops of red. I tried to make a lighter pink and even 4 drops got it pretty dark so if you are wanting a super light pink, start with just 1 or 2 drops.

Pour it into the pan and set timer for 15 minutes.

Now that the second batch is setting up, go ahead and cut out your hearts. I cut out as many large hearts as I could. Then you can use your smaller hearts to cut out from the centers of them to fill in with the other color. You’ll know when your wax is set enough because when you press your cutter into it, the wax should pick right up into the cutter. If it sticks to the rest of the wax, it isn’t cool enough yet.

So here’s what my first white soap ended up looking like. You can put the scraps back into your measuring cup and remelt to make more soap but you need to wait until you get this soap completely made and then do it separately.

Once your pink sets, go ahead and cut them out and then put the soaps together as you wish. You are fighting against time here. If the white gets too cool you can’t squish the two colors together and the smaller hearts will just fall right out.

If you have a second loaf pan, you can actually do 3 colors. If you don’t, the soap will NOT give you 30 minutes past when the first one is done to get 2 more batches finished. What I would recommend is doing 2 sets of 2 colors. Your second set might be white and purple or pink and purple.

And here are my soap. The soap says ages 9 and up but I assume that’s because of the heat. If you melt and pour the wax yourself, the little ones will love cutting out the hearts and arranging the soaps. There isn’t any heat left after the 15 minutes in the loaf pan.

This was a lot simpler then I thought it would be and got really cute results! You can also purchase scents from Michael’s to make a scented soap. The small hearts might also make good bath melting scents. All in all a fun, cheap, easy project that produces cute results!

Last week Mara released a new kit just in time for Valentine’s. Image is linked.