Helpful tips

How to make soap with natural ingredients

Make soap yourselfMake soap yourself

Classic soaps are currently experiencing a real renaissance. Anyone who wants to consume as little packaging and as little plastic as possible reaches for the bar of soap. Solid soaps are economical to use, do not require preservatives due to their low water content, and are considered to be readily biodegradable. It's no wonder, then, that bar soaps are in particularly high demand in the age of sustainability. When it comes to production, it is not only the old-established soap manufacturers who rely on centuries-old craftsmanship and traditional recipes, but also the new manufactories that are reflecting on the tried and tested. Because good things are often so close at hand.

Sustainably clean. Our recipe for your personal bar of soap

You want to try your hand and discover the magic of soap making for yourself? It doesn't take much at all: high-quality ingredients, a little flair and a good dose of love. We'll tell you how you can easily create your own delicately scented bars of soap based on good old bar soap. And since our recipe uses no chemicals at all, even the little ones can get in on the fun. Creatively packaged in stylish paper or in a homemade cardboard box, the soaps make a successful hostess gift. It hardly gets any more sustainable than this.

Lavender oilLavender oil

The ingredients

  • 100 g curd soap (alternatively soap scraps or soap flakes)
  • Some boiled water
  • 20 g coconut, almond or sesame oil
  • 1 tsp honey (optional)
  • Essential oils such as orange, lavender or Swiss stone pine oil (optional)
  • Coffee powder or coarse sea salt (optional)
  • Dried lavender flowers, grated organic orange or lemon (optional).

Step by step to the bar of soap

  1. The soap is best finely grated with a kitchen grater and melted with the addition of a little water on low heat directly in the pot or in a water bath with stirring until the mass has a creamy-buttery consistency. This may take some time. So practice patience.
  2. Once the soap has melted, you can add the nourishing ingredients and a few drops of fragrance oil if you like. Whip the mixture vigorously with a hand blender or mixer. This will give the soap a particularly creamy texture.
  3. if you want to create a light peeling effect, add some coffee powder or coarse sea salt.
  4. Add lavender flowers or grated and dried orange or lemon peel to make your soap especially pretty and delicately scented.
  5. Then pour the viscous mass into a mold. As an alternative to special soap molds, you can use discarded and sterilized cream cheese containers, yogurt pots or milk cartons (cut open lengthwise).
  6. now let the soap harden in a cool place. If the soap does not release easily from the mold afterwards, place it in the freezer for a few hours. Then take it out and let it stand for a short time. This will help the soap release from the mold.
  7. If you like, you can cut the existing soap molds into pieces with a knife or use cookie cutters to sculpt stars, moons, hearts and more. But don't forget to clean the molds extensively before Christmas baking. Otherwise, there will be vinegar-sour faces for the feast afterwards.
  8. now the soap should mature in an airy, dark and cool place for about three to four weeks. And your bar of soap is ready.
Soap flakesSoap flakes

If you plane the soap very finely, it melts all the better in the water bath.

1 tsp honey for soap making1 tsp honey for soap making

A little honey as an addition nourishes the skin and gives the soap a fine fragrance.

Lemon oilLemon oil

With pure essential oils, as we offer them, already one to two drops provide the characteristic note.

Soaps at Manufactum

Our soaps come from small manufactories where the soaps are made according to ancestral methods and recipes with great care and attention to detail. They gently cleanse and are made in the majority on the basis of olive or coconut oil, enriched with nourishing ingredients such as shea butter, almond or argan oil, goat or camel milk. They are characterized by a pleasant fragrance, which they owe to high-quality essential oils or ingredients such as honey and royal jelly. And for sensitive or allergy-prone skin, we also offer plant soaps entirely without fragrances.