How To Make Shea Butter Soap Bar

The easiest homemade soap recipe using an organic melt and pour shea butter soap base. Here I’ll show you how to make a shea butter soap bar step-by-step with a variety of scent options. No matter what scent you decide, this soap will make your skin look and feel great!

Why Make Your Own Soap?

If you’ve read any of my other posts, you likely know that my daughter has several food, dye and environmental allergies. As many other parents know, this can cause quite a challenge when making food, or any other product choices. Most items that are made or intended for kids include some type of color to make it appear bright, fun and exciting. However, that typically involves some type of dye. A dye that my daughter is most likely allergic too. Thus our dilemma.

I thought the food allergies were difficult, but had no idea that the most difficult would prove to be the dye allergy! Have you read the ingredients to children’s bubble bath, shampoo and conditioner lately? So many of them include Red-40, her greatest allergen. The poor thing broke out in hives during bath time countless times before we were aware what was going on. I, like a lot of other moms, got carried away with the cute packaging and pink princess soap. I had no idea what I was actually putting on my child!

I’m so glad I am much more aware and cautious these days. But it doesn’t take away the fact that I am raising young kids who don’t fully comprehend or understand why they can’t have the pink, strawberry princess soap. So, like I do with all of our kitchen recipes; I decided to come up with a way to make fun, scented, pink soap that my children could actually use. And most importantly, it be safe for them!

Even if your child or you, yourself do not have any type of allergy. I encourage you to take a closer look at all the soaps and shampoos etc in your home, The ingredients may shock you.

Why Use Shea Butter?

The decision to use shea butter as my melt and pour soap base was an easy one for me because my daughter is highly allergic to goat’s milk! When we first purchased our land, our goal was to have as many goats as possible and make our own soaps and lotions from their milk.

However, after some extensive allergy testing we discovered that was not going to be in our future so our plans have since changed. And that’s ok 🙂 For you, that may not be the case so feel free to use an organic goat’s milk melt and pour base. I will just be focusing on Shea Butter because that is what we personally use.

Benefits of Shea Butter

Shea Butter is a very popular ingredient and rightly so and is used in a number of beauty products. Keep in mind that not all shea butter’s are created equal. Make sure you pick a quality item with no added fillers. The whole point in making your own is to avoid toxic ingredients and have fun along the way. I love shea butter and here are just a few reason why:

• Helps soften & smooth dry skin

• Has Anti-inflammatory and healing properties

• Promotes collagen production

• Smooths wrinkles-(say what?!)

• Restores moisture in areas prone to dryness

• Brightens the skin

See why I love it so much? You can find it at almost any craft store. Personally, I purchase mine off Amazon. You can find it here. Now that you know why I prefer to make our own soap, and what soap base we use, lets make some soap!

How To Make Shea Butter Soap Bar: Citrus

Ingredients

• 1 lb Organic Shea Butter Melt and Pour Soap Base

• Glass bowl- You can either microwave or use as a double boiler

• 30 Drops Wild Orange Essential Oil

• 1 tsp dried orange zest

• Soap Mold-I found mine on Amazon, but you can find them at most craft stores like Hobby Lobby or Michael. We’ve made traditional rectangle soap bars, unicorns, sea shells etc.qa

Instructions

1. Cut the shea butter soap base into small chunks and place them onto a digital weight scale. Weigh out exactly 16 ounces or 1 pound for best results. Then place into a double boiler or microwave safe bowl.
2. For Double Boiler: Melt over medium heat. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon. 
3. For Microwave: Place soap cubes into microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir with metal spoon and microwave in 20 second increments until all the soap is melted.
4. Remove from heat or microwave when it is completely melted. 
5. Add in essential oil and dried zest.
6. Pour into soap mold. 
7. Allow it to completely harden ~40 minutes. Then remove the soap out of the mold. 

How To Make Shea Butter Soap Bar: Lavender

INGREDIENTS 

1 pound Organic Melt and Pour Shea Butter Soap Base

30 drops Lavender Essential Oil

1 teaspoon lavender petals

2 teaspoons Raw Honey

Silicone Soap Mold

Instructions

1. Cut the shea butter soap base into small chunks and place them onto a digital weight scale. Weigh out exactly 16 ounces or 1 pound for best results. Then place into a double boiler or microwave safe bowl.
2. For Double Boiler: Melt over medium heat. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon. 
3. For Microwave: Place soap cubes into microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir with metal spoon and microwave in 20 second increments until all the soap is melted.
4. Remove from heat or microwave when it is completely melted. 
5. Add in lavender essential oil and dried lavender petals.
6. Pour into soap mold. 
7. Allow it to completely harden ~40 minutes. Then remove the soap out of the mold. 

How To Make Shea Butter Soap Bar: Oatmeal & Honey

INGREDIENTS 

1 pound Organic Melt and Pour Shea Butter Soap Base

1 tsp liquid coffee (optional)

1 tablespoon Colloidal Oats

2 teaspoons Raw Honey

Silicone Soap Mold

Instructions

1. Cut the shea butter soap base into small chunks and place them onto a digital weight scale. Weigh out exactly 16 ounces or 1 pound for best results. Then place into a double boiler or microwave safe bowl.
2. For Double Boiler: Melt over medium heat. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon. 
3. For Microwave: Place soap cubes into microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir with metal spoon and microwave in 20 second increments until all the soap is melted.
4. Remove from heat or microwave when it is completely melted. 
5. Add in colloidal oats, raw honey and coffee at this time.
6. Pour into soap mold. 
7. Allow it to completely harden ~40 minutes. Then remove the soap out of the mold. 

Add-Ins & Variations To Try

Oatmeal-Personally, oatmeal is my favorite add-in to our homemade soap! Oatmeal is great for the skin and can be very beneficial and helpful for different skin conditions. You can use quick oats, colloidal oatmeal or powder oatmeal. I always use colloidal oats and then sprinkle in a few quick oats for some texture. I then add 2 tbsp of raw honey per pound of soap. It makes a very cute and beneficial soap bar.

Coffee-Caffeine is anti-inflammatory for the skin. It reduces water retention, making skin look less puffy and improves circulation (both are good for reducing the appearance of cellulite). You can used liquid coffee, coffee grinds and coffee beans in soap making. Liquid Coffee adds a very pretty color to soap. I prefer to pour a small amount (~1/4 cup) and stir just enough to make little swirls. You can add coffee grinds to use as an exfoliator or whole beans as decorations.

Rose Clay-Known to reduce irritation, increase circulation, regenerate collagen, promote new cell growth for skin and regenerate skin elasticity, rose clay is a wonderful addition to your soap! Not only does it provide amazing benefits but it also produces a lovely color., My daughter absolutely adored some pink unicorn soap I made for her, she was so excited to finally have pink soap! And I was thrilled to know there were no harmful or toxic ingredients.

Dried Flower or Zest-I love to add dried lavender petals to my lavender soap. Because I don’t use any dyes to my soaps it adds a beautiful color and amplifies the scent of the lavender. Rose petals and dried citrus zest are also fun ways to add color and dimension without adding toxic fragrances or dyes.

Non-Toxic Fragrance

Essential Oils– Good, quality essential oils are my go-to to scent my soaps versus using a ‘soap fragrance’ you can purchase at the store. My goal is to use clean, non-toxic ingredients so naturally I chose essential oils for fragrance. The options are really limitless with essential oil blends. They have blends for sensitive skin, soothing, calming, citrus…whatever you want basically! I prefer using Doterra because I like the company and one of my good, long time friends who is well educated in oils assists me in choosing the right blend for our family.

Favorite Essential Oil Blend

Calming/Soothing

• Lavender
• Chamomile
• Clary Sage

Citrus

• Wild Orange
• Lemon/Lemon Grass

Sensitive Skin

• Lavender
• Geranium
• Frankincense

These are just a few ideas to help you along, but like I said the options are really limitless. Which is why I love making our own soap! The size, scent, color are specifically catered for your individual needs. If you’re interested in learning more about the oils, you can find that information here.

These are so simple and beautiful. Anyone can make them and I hope you enjoy them as much as we do. Happy Soap making!

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