DIY Soap Ideas and Recipes 

Looking for a fun activity for yourself and the kids? How about making soap! 

We love all things DIY, especially when they involve essential oils and natural ingredients. That’s why we decided to put together a list of our favorite DIY soap ideas and recipes. This is an activity anyone can enjoy and benefit from. Let’s get started! 

Basic Necessities for Making Soap 

• Oil or fat
• Lye (Sodium hydroxide)
• Water
• Essential oil or fragrance 
• Soap mold
• Protective gear like eye goggles and gloves when working with lye

Methods for Making Soap 

1. The melt and pour process helps you skip some difficult steps and isn’t exactly maing soap from scratch. Instead of starting from ground-zero, you’ll be using a pre-made soap base, which means you can avoid using lye. This is a great method if you’re planning on making soap with young children as lye can be dangerous. 
2. Or, you can opt for a cold process / hot process, which would involve lye and making soap from scratch. Cold process soap making takes a bit longer than the hot process, and will come out more, let;s say… refined than the hot process. But the look and process is up to you. 

Now on to those recipes! 

• 500 ml (17 oz) lemon balm infused organic virgin olive oil
• 200 ml (7 oz) organic virgin coconut oil
• 250 ml (8.4 oz) water
• 106 (3.6 oz) sodium hydroxide
• 60 ml (2 oz) calendula infused grapeseed oil
• 15 ml (0.5 oz) shea butter
• 10 ml (.34 oz) lemon essential oil
• 5 ml (.17 oz) peppermint essential oil
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1.5 tsp green mica powder

Follow complete guidelines here.

2. Natural Pink Grapefruit And Clay Soap

• 10 oz. (350 grams) Coconut Oil
• 6 oz. (170 grams) Palm Oil (please, if possible, try to use a certified sustainable palm oil)
• 8 oz. (226 grams) Olive Oil
• 10 oz. (283 grams) Caster Oil
• 4 oz. (113 grams) Almond Oil
• 5.9 oz (176 grams) Lye
• 14 oz. (397 grams) Cold Water (distilled or filtered if possible)
• 4 tsp of Grapefruit Essential Oils (EO’s are expensive so if you're ok with grapefruit fragrance oil you can swap it here but I’d suggest leaving out fragrance if the people using it have sensitivities).
• 2 tbsp pink clay

• 1/4 (2 or 3 oz) of a cucumber, unpeeled
• 9 oz (255 g) cool or chilled water
• 3.83 oz (108 g) lye (sodium hydroxide)
• 1/2 tbsp French green clay
• optional: 1 tsp sodium lactate
• 12 oz (340 g) olive oil
• 8 oz (227 g) coconut oil (*or babassu oil)
• 4 oz (113 g) rice bran oil
• 2 oz (57 g) avocado oil
• 2 oz (57 g) shea, mango or avocado butter

And of course, if this all seems a little too overwhelming for you, you can always buy Play Pits Limited Edition Detox Soap bar made with the freshest skin ingredients your skin will love:

• Sugar
• Organic Virgin Coconut Oil
• Sunflower Seed Oil
• Avocado) Oil
• Play Pits Custom Natural Fragrance/Essential oil blend

Happy soap making everyone!