Making Soap

Today we made soap with the daycare kids! One of my daycare moms had given us some leftover party favors several months ago, and I still had the bouncy balls left. I thought they'd be perfect for using in soap!

Here's how they turned out-

Aren't they super cute??!

Here's what we did...

I used 2 lbs of clear olive oil melt and pour soap (which I got NEW for $2 at a yard sale months ago!!), peppermint essential oil, and the bouncy balls, which were free (thank you Henriikka!). The only soap mold I had that the balls would fully fit in was the  large half round loaf mold I got in a big batch of molds for $1 at a thrift store last Winter, so all in all this project cost about $2.50. We had a small crew today, only 4 kids old enough to do this project, so I dividied the soap into 4 equal parts, which resulted in larger than usual bars, but that was fun, too! Soooo, since most everything I used was free or super cheap, or I already had it on hand, each soap bar ended up costing about 60 cents!!

To keep the round mold level and prevent rolling, I filled a cardboard box with rice and set the mold inside.

I poured the melted soap first, then set in the balls in a way that would let me slice them evenly. I used my finger to gently tap them until they were just barely submerged.

This is what it looked like in the mold after it had mostly set (turned over).

The melt and pour container said it should take 20-40 minutes for the soap to cool, but because this was a deeper mold it was still very warm on the bottom. I placed it over the air conditioning vent to cool it down the rest of the way. It took about an hour and a half total.

When it was all the way cool, I flipped it over and gently pushed. The soap came out easily. This is the loaf out of the mold. It's a little cloudy looking but not very much, and you can still see the details of the bouncy balls, which the kids loved. 

I didn't spray it with alcohol to get rid of bubbles, which is usually a step a professional soap maker would use. I imagine it would have been clearer if I'd done that part, but I had no alcohol on hand today so we skipped that step and it turned out great just the same! 

Here are the bars after they were sliced. I can't believe how great they turned out!

 I thought the balls might sink all the way to the bottom, but they were pretty light, and this particular mix and pour is a special suspension formula, so it probably helped keep these slightly afloat.

Bonus- when the kids use the soap enough to expose the balls, it will act as a natural scrubby when they wash their hands or take a bath. I can't wait to do more of these!