Lavender is an important ingredient for soap used for aromatherapy.  The natural characteristics of lavender are known for their ability to sooth physical and emotional stress and also reduce pain from burns, headaches, itchy insect bits, and other irritating or tension related problems.  If you’re someone looking to enrich their everyday health or want to sell soap to help other people, lavender handmade soaps should be part of everyone’s recipe book.  Benefit from the natural health remedy of lavender and make the soap today.

Here is a very simple process for making lavender handmade soap.  What you’ll first want to do is a grate a mild, unscented soap bar into a large bowl.  Once grated, add 125 ml of dried lavender blossoms and5 drops of lavender essential oils mixed with 50 ml of warm water.  Stir the mixture thoroughly and then pour into molds of shapes of your choice.  Dry the soap for about 2 days.

Once dried, you can enjoy the aromatherapy provided by the handmade lavender soap.  The aroma delivered by the lavender will help you relax and make your pains and stresses seem like they’re melting away.  Applied to the skin directly, lavender soap is a powerful healer for any fungal infections, mild burns, cuts, and even mild acne.  If you live in an area that has a lot of pesky mosquitoes, you’ll discover that the lavender scent bestowed by your newly made soap bar will deter the nasty insects from biting you.

Whether you’re planning on making soap for supplemental income, or just as a fun hobby, you should start making lavender soap bar as part of your selection of other recipes.  Not only will you enjoy bathing with them, but they also sell fairly well on the market, plus make really great gifts for the holidays.  So what are you waiting for?  Get started!

If you’re looking for a way to make some money with your handmade soap, you’re probably wondering what are the best ways to market your product.  Bath and body soap is a very profitable niche and many people make  full time income selling their soaps both locally and nationally on the internet.  Whether you’re looking for a full time job or some supplemental income, soap making can change from a simple, fun hobby to a great and successful business.

There are many different ways that you can make money selling bars of handmade soap.  Many small business soap makers have found continued success using these tactics and sell hundreds and thousands of pieces of natural soap every year.

The first place you should consider selling your handmade soap at is festivals.  Many people go to fairs, festivals, and carnivals every year and look for fun and unique things to buy.  Many people, with proper introduction and explanations, will gladly try out your soap (especially if it’s priced right).  Look in your paper for the next local carnival and set up shop.  Not only will you make some great sales, but often, if you make a great product, people will return and buy more of your soap and even recommend it to their friends.

With every sale done, make sure you give out a flier detailing your business including how to contact you, plus information about other types of soaps and products you carry.  These types of brochures will usually only cost a few cents and can generate tons of money in the future.  Offer incentives for referrals so that your customers recommend their friends to your products.

Setting up a website about your handmade soap is another great way of generating sales.  Offer lots of information about your products and how handmade soap benefits every day people.  When people read about natural soap’s benefits on your website, they will consider buying soap from you.  You’ll be surprised how many people may end up buying from a website that only took a few hours to set up.

Once you’ve had a few orders, make sure you keep those addresses.  Assuming you’ve made a quality soap product, many people will buy again when you send a catalog in the mail about your latest line of soaps.  Satisfied customers make great repeat customers.

Finally, find local and national health businesses that are interested in handmade soaps.  If you want to move a lot of soap product, you’ll discover the best way is through selling in bulk to these types of stores.  Offer a great bulk rate and you’ll soon be making money selling handmade soap.

In conclusion, there are many ways you can make money on your homemade bath and body soaps.  Whether you choose to exclusively sell to local people you know or nationally to thousands of people every year, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to make extra cash.

Shea Butter with Mango Soap

This soap recipe is great for people looking for a soap the rejuvenates their skin.  Shea Butter is known for its many natural healing abilities including healing rashes, moisturizing dry skin, reducing itchy skin, and restoring natural beauty and making the skin look younger.  If you haven’t tried a soap recipe with Shea Butter before I highly recommend trying out this recipe.

Ingredients:

Olive Oil 16 ounces
Coconut Oil 16 ounces
Shea Butter 8 ounces
Mango Butter 8 ounces
Water 17 ounces
Sodium Hydroxide (lye) 6.8 ounces
Optional Fragrance of Your Choice 2 ounces

This recipe will make about 4 pounds of soap product.

Hemp Body Bar Soap

Hemp has been known for its many nutritional benefits including Omega 3 and Omega 6 which promote a healthier body and skin.  Hemp has great anti-inflammatory properties which heal the skin of lesions, inflammation, and dryness.

Ingredients:

Palm Oil 32 ounces
Coconut 76 27 ounces
Hemp Oil 16 ounces
Olive Oil 15 ounces
Vitamin E Oil 10 drops
Sodium Hydroxide 13 ounces
Distilled Water 30 ounces
Essential Oils of Your Choice 4 ounces
Coral Mica Powder 1-2 tsps.

This recipe will make 8 pounds of handmade soap.

When you buy factory made and commercially packaged soap, you’re not getting handmade soap.  Natural handmade soaps have natural moisturizing properties which get taken away during the factory production process and gets replaced with synthetic chemicals and materials.  Handmade soap is what would be described as a “cleanser” where commerically mass produced soap is actually a “detergent”.  Detergents are fairly unhealthy for your skin and cause your skin to dry, tighten up, and can even cause pimples and acne breakouts.  The synthetic ingredients used to store-bought factory soap are truly poor for skin health.

Natural handmade soap is an entirely different story when it comes to skin health.  Handmade soap, whether made by you at home or purchased from a natural health store, contains no “fake” or synthetic ingredients or chemicals.  Everything is natural and it has been proven that natural soap is much better for your skin.  While the majority of the United States use commercial soaps now, a slow switch is being made back to handmade soaps.   Slowly people are realizing the major benefits of handmade soaps compared to factory-made soaps.

Handmade soaps have always been discussed as a healthy skin cleanser but only recently have scientific research and study have shown the true benefits of natural handmade soap.  If you have been having skin problems, you’ll discover the miracle healing abilities of handmade soap once you make the switch.  People who have skin disorders like eczema, sensitive skin, acne, or other skin problems have discovered that handmade really works.  Through prolonged use of this kind of soap, skin problems lessened in severity or disappeared altogether.  The difference between commercial factory-made soap and natural handmade soap is really like a comparison between night and day.  Handmade soap is simply the better choice.

If you haven’t tried handmade soap before, I highly recommend buying some today.  You’ll notice the difference in quality right away and you’ll never want to switch back once you’ve started using it.

Mark’s Pumpkin Pizzazz

Mark’s Pumpkin Pizzazz is a great seasonal soap for the fall and the winter months.  (If you have someone in your family that loves pumpkin pie, this soap could be used year round).  This type of handmade soap would be great Christmas present to give to anyone who loves spice cake or pumpkin pie.  This is a very fun soap recipe and so if you want to make a soap that is a little different from what you’ve made before, this a great soap for you.

Ingredients:

Coconut Oil 27%
Olive Oil 25%
Palm Oil 25%
Sweet Almond Oil 8%
Jojoba Oil 8%
Shea Butter 7%

Recipe:

At trace, add 4 oz. of Pumpkin Spice FO either bought online or at a local store and add about 20 scoops of yellow oxide and 2 scoops of red oxide.  To add to some bits of dynamic visual “spice” use dried pumpkin flakes.

Wheat-E Bar with Honey and Almond by Leona Marchand

If you’re looking for great handmade soap for dry or sensitive skin, Wheat-E Bar is the soap for you.  This is a great soap for keeping your skin clean, beautiful, and maintain good health.  This is a particularly mild soap too so people with sensitive skin:  rejoice.

This soap recipe uses wheat germ oil which is a great natural ingredient for skin health.  Wheat germ is chock full of vitamins A, D, E which are known for their great benefits for skin health.  Also, this oil is also known for its soothing properties for damaged and irritated skin.

Ingredients:

Castor Oil 34.0 oz
Olive Oil 22.0 oz
Coconut Oil 14.6 oz
Distilled Water 10.2 oz
Palm Oil 9.8 oz
Fresh Almond Milk 8.0 oz
NaOH 6.85 oz
Wheat Germ Oil 2.4 oz
Spicy Vanilla EO Blend 2.2 oz
Almond Meal 2 tbs.
Vitamin E Oil 0.2 oz
Clover Honey 0.4 oz
Sodium Borate 3/8 tsp.

Spicy Vanilla EO Blend for Soap Recipe:

Nutmeg EO 1.0 oz
Clove Bud EO 0.6 oz
Ginger EO 0.2 oz
Cinnamon Leaf EO 0.1 oz
Cardamom EO 0.1 oz
Vanilla Oleoresin 0.1 oz

In the soap making process, the soap maker will blend the oils and lye and use the chemical process that follows to create their soap.  When naturally made soap has finished saponifying, there will be no left found from the soap mixture.  The lye that was in the original soap mixture had been neutralized during the initial chemical phases.  The great benefit during the saponification is the soap creates glycerin.  Glycerin is soap’s natural moisturizer.  Some soap makers, in order to make a good product, has to make sure their soap passes the superfatting stage.  This stage is where they need to understand and maintain the formula to make soap by adding more lye or oil to the soap mixture.

The benefits to the superfatting process is when extra oil is added, it stays within the soap and will also help maintain and moisturize your skin.  Most soap makers will use shea butter for the superfat in their soaps.  It’s commonly known that shea butter has great benefits that it adds to the soap with the extra benefit that it doesn’t leave an oily residue.  Some ingredients used in superfatting can leave an oil on your skin which can block pores and cause you to break out with pimples.

Handmade soap truly is a wondrous product and if you haven’t used it for bathing you are missing out.  Whether you decide to make your soap yourself or buy from a trustworthy online resource, handmade soap is the best thing you can do to your skin in the cleansing process.  So find someone that sells natural handmade soap and experience it for yourself!

Soap making has been around for thousands of years.  Ancient cultures had recipes they used to make fine soap products to help keep their skin clean and healthy.  Unfortunately, as the industrial age and the information age came upon us, many of those recipes has been forgotten in the United States and other industrialized nations.  Now, people rely on big skin care manufacturers to create their soap for them, which can actually end up being very bad for the people.  Factory soap makers don’t necessarily have the best interest of their soap users in mind.  To save money, factories today use animal fats and chemical softeners in place of glycerin found in natural soap.  Glycerin is a natural by-product from the soap making process.   When used on your skin, glycerin will soften and nourish the skin.  Soap factories replace glycerin with man-made chemicals which can often be harsh on your skin and then sell the glycerin in their lotion products.

If you haven’t used handmade soap before I strongly encourage you to make some or buy some online.  Natural handmade soap has a smell and lather that just can’t be beat by soap made by a factory.  But, since prices for handmade soap can be pricey (you can find pretty good deals online though), many people resort to making soap themselves.  The cost of making your own soap is only about $8 and the results are simply magnificent.  You simply feel much more refreshed knowing what exactly went into the soap you’re using.  Making handmade soap is easy but can be a lot of time, but if you’re determined, you can have your own soap in no time.

Handmade soap is made with a technique called “cold process”.  With the cold process, you can easily make your soap from scratch.  Here are some of most basic instructions you’ll find on how to make your own natural soap:

1. Grab a glass bowl and add lye with distilled water.  Stir slowly.
2. In a stainless steel pot melt the oils you want in your soap.
3. When the oil and lye water mixtures reach about the same temperature, pour the lye water into the pot with the oils.  This will make your soap mixture.
4. Stir the soap mixture until it reaches “trace” which is a point in soap making where the ingredients are permanently bonded together.
5. Once in the trace stage of the handmade soap making process, put in all other essential oils, herbs,  and fragrances called for in the recipe.
6. Stir the soap mix some more and then pour into soap molds.
7. Cover the molds up and let rest for about a day or two or until soap solidifies.
8. Once solid, remove the cover and take the soap out of the mold.
9. Cure the soap for about 4 to 6 weeks.

That is the very most basic way to make soap.  There are many more advanced recipes out there for more experienced soap makers.  Natural homemade soap truly is a marvel of skin care and is highly recommended to start using that type of soap.  If you feel intimidated by the soap making process and the time it takes, take this time to explore the many online websites that sell handmade soap.  Different shops sell soap at different prices so shop around.