Soapmaking: Easy Melt and Pour Creations

There are folks who likely from the first notion of realizing “Hmmm…you mean I really could make my own homemade soap” dove right in and fearlessly learned how to make cold process soap from scratch. They picked up “melt and pour” soapmaking as an alternative…a novelty…a type of soap making reserved primarily for creative, decorative, artful, creations – not for "real" soap that you use every day in the shower.

However, many soap makers got their start making melt and pour soap. For them, it IS soap making regardless of what the more purist cold process soap makers might say. And there are many soap makers for whom melt and pour is just fine for them. They are able to make quality soap, in small quantities, without having to store a lot of ingredients or chemicals.

This DVD gives melt and pour soap making a healthy dose of respect!

Sharyn Pak, the founder of On Air Video is a craft expert and on-air personality who demonstrates her passion for crafting, and her dedication to nurturing other crafters in this DVD.

Starting with a wonderful overview of the history of soap making, the four major methods to make soap (cold process, hot process, melt and pour and rebatching or milling), and a great overview of tools required to make these soaps, Melt and Pour Soapmaking: Easy Melt & Pour Creations shows just how broad the scope of melt and pour soap making can be, and walks you through, step by step, how to make your own marvelous melt and pour soaps.

From the most basic single color soap, to soaps with additives and exfoliants, to involved soap creations, Ms. Pak takes you step by step through 13 great melt and pour soap projects. The DVD is nearly two hours long - and each project lists the ingredients and tools needed, as well as guides the viewer through the project's steps.

1. Clear Plain Hearts - a very basic melt and pour soap project
2. Cinnamon Hearts - a melt and pour "sandwich" soap
3. Green Tea Soap - with added green tea for color and interest
4. Oatmeal Soap - two different versions - both with natural exfoliation
5. Shea Butter Shaving - Sharyn's version of a melt and pour shaving soap
6. Fruit Slices - a fun, slightly advanced project that creates melt and pour fruit slices
7. Red Hot Hearts - a soap very much like my Valentines Soap that uses the Cinnamon Hearts soaps as embeds
8. Chunks and Hunks/Confetti - a soap that uses chunks and slivers of melt and pour soap to create lively, artistic soaps. This project reminded me of my Peppermint Ice project.
9. Peace, Love and Lather - A really creative double embed soap with a special carved soap embed
10. Skin Soothing Scrubby - Using a nylon scrubby, this soap gives exfoliation and cleaning
11. Honeycomb Loofa - A melt and pour loofah soap for super exfoliation
12. Hard Working Hands - A wonderful gardener's soap - with scrubby corn meal

Ms. Pak then literally wraps up the video by wrapping up some of the soaps she has made. In the last section on packaging, soap packaging in both tissue paper and custom cut boxes is demonstrated.

Ms. Pak's does a few things a little differently than I do...but there is certainly room in the soap making world for a variety of approaches and methods. This video is a marvelous tutorial on how to make melt and pour soaps. Anyone who follows the steps and recipes in this video carefully should have no problem creating their own wonderful melt and pour soap creations. As a bonus, the DVD has PDFs of all of the recipes that you can print out and follow while you're making the soaps.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.