Clean Crafting….
Photography courtesy of Tatiana Osario @tatiaos @myworldintwo
Creating soap
I started making my own soaps as a hobby a few years ago; I’ve always liked crafting, anything from sewing to baking etc. As a family, it’s something we love too, especially at the moment; we’re doing anything to stay away from too much time on screens! My children have their own creative passions too, my nine year old daughter is really into spinning yarn….the old fashioned way which is amazing! Whereas my son who is twelve, loves nothing more than to cook up weird and wonderful science experiments.
So trying to combine all of our interests into something we could do as a family, we decided to give soap making a try. First, we opted for the “melt and pour” soap bases and we had great fun using dried rose petals and lavender buds to scent and make our soaps look attractive. From there, we progressed and now we love nothing better than using as many eco-friendly and naturally sourced ingredients as possible to make our own soaps from scratch.
The Best Ingredients
It’s definitely a case of who you know and having the best contacts when it comes to top, soap ingredients. My brother-in-law keeps bees, which has given us the most wonderful natural honey for our Zingy Citrus Goat’s Milk and Honey soaps. I have also found using dried orange slices, Dried & Floral lavender and rose petals, (to name but a few) are equally excellent ingredients to add to our soaps. I love infusing olive oil with lavender, I tend to leave it for up to 8 weeks before I make a batch of soap, this means that I then only need to use half of the essential oil in the soap as the oil already smells so fragrant by itself. The Citrus soaps are perfect if you like a soap that’s fresh and clean with a zing and the dried orange slices in the soap not only look gorgeous, but also act as an exfoliation scrub in the soap. Being an owner in Dried & Floral has definitely been a great perk to the soap making process as I get the best access to all sorts of lovely ingredients to play with.
From experimenting with varying ingredients, we have started to find our favourites; my daughter loves using rose petals, lavender, sage, apple slices and rosemary for her soaps and bath salts. My son favours dried oranges and lemon slices, cinnamon, ground coffee beans, nettles and fresh aloe. The list is endless and we’re always coming up with new ideas and new mixes for our soaps, bath salts and bath bombs. We love to add and experiment with new ingredients and will often use our dried flowers to decorate the soaps as well as them being part of the ingredients. Recently we’ve been trying to be more eco friendly and our latest addition to the soap making is shampoo bars. Dried & Florals abundance of grasses mean that I can use Lepidium or Oats for cleansing and strengthening these natural bars, which are key ingredients to making them work effectively. Our Eucalyptus makes a great addition too which enhances and decorates our shower melts if we have a cold that needs shifting. All of these creations have made great presents and are fun and easy to make.
Our next family crafting mission will be candle making. We’re so excited to see how they turn out and have seen so many dried flowers and grasses being used over the past year which is really inspiring to us personally, as well as a small business. Oats look particularly great and you can add herbs in too if you fancy going for a more pagan feel.
So, is there anything else on my list to make & do? Well, it’s quite a long list so I’m pacing myself to get through lockdown! But, perfume oils are a definite, along with some natural body butters and bath scrubs using dried flowers, the possibilities are endless. Might even start some dried flower cards as well at some stage so keep an eye out for that if you are interested and need some light relief from life’s current monotony.
