How to make homemade soap

This soap is a pleasure to give and to receive.The difference between Grandma's harsh,greasy soap and your luxurious hand made soap,is the choice of ingredients.

All soap is made from mixing sodium hydroxide (also known as lye), a naturally-occurring chemical together with some sorts of fats or oils. Examples could be coconut oil, shea butter or coconut butter, olive oil, and so on. There are many natural oils that can be used for soap making and mixing them together in different proportions leads to many exciting types of soap in many variations.

The steps to making soap are:

1. You make a lye solution by mixing lye and water in the right proportion,letting it cool to room temperature.

2. You then take a pot, and heat it to melt the oils and fats that are solid at room temperature, and also warm the liquid oils.

3. Mix in the lye, stir with a stick blender until it reaches ‘trace’, the state where all the components have irreversibly mixed together and the chemical process of ‘saponification’ has begun.

4. Add in the essential oils, herbs, and colourings and mix them in.

5. Pour the soap into your prepared molds to set.

6. After 24 hours, take them out and put them on racks and leave to cure. After around four weeks of curing your soaps are ready to use.

How to make perfume

Using essential oils to make your own perfume is not only great fun,but also extremely satisfying as well.These natural perfumes can help to enhance a person's good mood,drive away a bad one,help them to relax or even to provide them with some energy. The recipe below is simple to make and easy to follow. If you want you could do a search to see which essential oils blend well together and try them instead.

So,by following the simple instructions provided below,you will soon be making your very own aromatherapy perfume.

First,you need a base. It can either be alcohol or a carrier oil (but the best is a mixture of the two together).The best type of acohol to use is one which is odorless (like vodka) and mix it with jojoba. Jojoba is particulary good and once it is put on the skin,it tends to dry out and leave a wonderful scent behind.

1. Take one teaspoon of carrier oil (jojoba,almond) and one teaspoon of alcohol and place them in a bottle.

2. Next,add the essential oils from your chosen recipe.You will add a drop at a time.

3. After adding each drop to the rest of the mixture,the bottle should be shaken (remember to put a lid on before shaking).

4. Now make sure the lid is on tightly,and store in a cool dark place for 12 or more.
5. After 12 days you can begin to enjoy the aromatherapy perfume that you have made.

The following recipes have been designed to help produce a much more calming effect to the person using them.

1.Tranquility

4 drops of Cedarwood

1 drop of Grapefruit

2 drops of Mandarin


2.Chill Out

2 drops of Grapefruit

2 drops of Patchouli

1 drop of Rose

2 drops of Ylang-Ylang

3.Sleep Tight

2 drops of Bergamot

3 drops if Chamomile

4 drops of Lavender


The nest recipes will enhance your mood and surround you with warmth.

1. Devotion

3 drops of Patchouli

2 drops of Rose

4 drops of Rosewood

2.Ardour

2 drops of Rose

2 drops of Ylang-Ylang

3 drops of Jasmine

       "A woman's perfume tells more about her than her handwriting".

 Christian Dior