Easy soap recipes for beginners

Looking to make your own specialty soaps? It's easy! We'll teach you how to make soap, add scent, and customize the recipe for your unique beauty needs.

This standard batch recipe makes an excellent hard soap for laundering and bathing. Here's what you'll need:

• 410 grams (14 ounces) of caustic soda
• 1.5 litres (6 cups) of water
• 3 kilograms (7 pounds) of fat
• If you're using vegetable oil, adjust these amounts to 585 grams/20 ounces caustic soda, 1.8 litres/8 cups water, and 4.5 kilograms/10 pounds fat.

This recipe will yield about 4.5 kilograms (10 pounds) of soap, which is enough to make about 36 individual cakes. Most other soaps are variations on this standard recipe.

Beauty soaps are made by adding scents, oils, and special-purpose substances, or by replacing some of the water and fat with other ingredients. The most popular variation is in the amount and type of fat or oil used. Extra fat or oil makes the soap superfatted and results in an extra gentle final product.

• Essential oils are powerful aromatic substances extracted from flowers, herbs, or wood. They can be obtained from health shops or specialist hobby shops and added to your soap before it's poured.
• Popular fragrances are lavender, rosemary, jasmine, eucalyptus and tea tree, but you can also make your own infusions from various herbs and flowers.
• Steep the plant in boiling water, strain off the solids, and substitute the infusion for some of the water in the standard recipe. If the infusion is strong enough, you can get the same result by adding it to the soap mixture just before pouring it into molds.
• Don't add over-the-counter perfumes or toilet waters: the alcohol they contain will interfere with saponification.
• Generally, two tablespoons of scent mixture will be sufficient for a standard batch of soap.

Homemade soap is a luxurious addition to your beauty routine, and it also makes an excellent gift if you're feeling generous. Don't be afraid to get creative! With so many scents, molds, and variations, making soap is a great opportunity to flex your creative muscles.