Making soap.

Today I got to make the soap I had been waiting to do for some time now.

I bought all the ingredients from a website called 'soap basics' for my daughters' 'Little House on the Prairie' party back in May. The stuff didn't arrive in time. So I waited for her friends to come over so we could try it out together. What I have here, on the table, are:

soap base (translucent and opaque)

3 colours

4 fragrances (inc vanilla and lemongrass)

dried flowers (rosebuds, lavender, orange and lemon verbena)

After melting the base in the microwave and dividing it into the bowls for the children, they added the colours, perfume and petals of their choice and stirred the mixture.

You have to be fairly quick with this process because the mixture soon starts to set.

Then the mixture was poured into moulds.

The soaps did not take very long to set and our visitors were able to take theirs home.

We really enjoyed doing this and will definitely make more for presents.

I think this could easily be done more cheaply by saving old bits of soap and melting down to add whatever ingredients one can get. I wanted to get colours and perfume that are designed for skin contact but I think some essential oils could be used (please check instructions) and flowers like lavender could be found in the garden.