20 Creative Handmade Soap Recipes for Beginners (2024)

Lauren Thomann

Lauren Thomann is a jewelry and antiques expert, sharing over 15 years of hands-on experience with DIY jewelry, gemstones, heirlooms, as well as home renovation projects. Her businesses, Ageless Heirlooms and Heirlooms at Home, focus on antiques. Lauren has also studied at the Gemological Institute of America.

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Updated on 08/26/24

20 Creative Handmade Soap Recipes for Beginners (2)

Take up the art of soap making and learn a practical skill, make beautiful gifts, and let your creativity run loose all at the same time. Homemade soap contains many natural and aromatic ingredients that are better for your skin and the planet than those in commercial soaps.

We've gathered 20 easy homemade soap recipes for beginners, including shampoo soap bars.

To make soap entirely from scratch (as opposed to melting and pouring with premade soap bases), you'll need to use lye, a caustic salt known as sodium hydroxide. The chemical reaction between lye and oil ingredients is called saponification, which creates soap (and leaves no lye in the finished product).

Although homemade soap recipes differ, several ingredients are constant:

Oil or fat
Lye (Sodium hydroxide)
Water
Essential oil or fragrance (optional)

Warning

Wear protective gear (eye goggles, gloves, long-sleeved tops, and pants) when working with lye.

Once you understand how to work with lye and experiment with the ingredients, tools, and equipment needed to make soap, you'll have learned a valuable skill.

Popular Soapmaking Methods

Four common methods of soapmaking are melt and pour, cold process, hot process, and rebatching. Before making your first batch of homemade soap, familiarize yourself with these methods. Some are easier than others, and knowing how each works will help you decide which tutorials to tackle.

The melt-and-pour process is not soap from scratch. Instead, pre-made soap bases are melted and molded, and you don't have to touch any lye.
The cold process and hot process are both techniques for making soap from scratch. The more popular cold process takes longer than the hot process, and the hot process creates more rustic-style soap. Both methods include working with lye.
Rebatching is remaking a bad batch of finished homemade soap. It's a way to save all the ingredients, but it's labor and time-intensive and often results in less aesthetically pleasing soap.

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Watch Now: 3 Ways to Make Your Own Soap

01 of 20
A Woodsy, Earthy Blend

This handsome, heavenly-scented cold process soap recipe is ideal for a beginner to tackle. From this recipe, you can learn how to use other additives. A base of coconut, canola, castor, sesame oil, Shea, and kokum butter blends with lime, vetiver, and cedarwood essential oils. The result is a smokey marbled soap with distinctive and intensely masculine scents that you'd find in the most delicious men's colognes. Make a batch to gift the men in your life.
Charcoal & Vetiver Soap Recipe from Tweak and Tinker
02 of 20
A Fresh Citrus Soap

This melt-and-pour soap recipe is simple since it's pre-mixed, but it becomes an artisan item with a bit of customization. There's no need to work with messy chemicals like lye with a melt-and-pour base. Dried citrus slices are key; they aren't fresh but have a refreshing scent. The slices are heavy, so add them after the base has cooled down slightly so it's not as thin and watery, or else the slices will fall to the bottom of the mold. For this recipe, find a goat's milk melt and pour base, then add citrus essential oil and dried orange slices.
Handmade Goat's Milk Citrus Soap by Hello, Wonderful
03 of 20
Skin Nourishing Soap

This double butter luxury soap recipe pairs two quality butter ingredients with a dash of creativity. Aside from being nourishing for the skin thanks to the cocoa and Shea butter, this soap has flecks of gold and brown mica (a soap colorant) to give it texture and golden, glittery color. The mica is a bit of a heavy additive, so add it just as the soap starts to thicken otherwise the colorant will fall to the bottom.
See Also
How to Make Soap from Scratch How To Make Soap From Scratch: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners
04 of 20
Fun Exfoliating Loofah Soap

Who says you can't be creative with a melt-and-pour soap base? Loofah soaps are easy to make with this technique. Melt the base, add extras, and cut the loofahs in the color of your choice so they fit in the mold. Then, pour the soap on top of the loofah. If you're making a rose soap, add rose essential oil and some rose mica colorant to your base.
DIY Rose Loofah Soap by A Pumpkin and a Princess
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05 of 20
Tea Time Soap

Once this homemade green tea and lemongrass soap is ready to use, the fragrance will make you feel like you just stepped into a spa. You might be able to make this simple soap with items you already have in your kitchen pantry. For instance, the soap in this photo contains steeped green tea leaves. Add eucalyptus and lemongrass oil for an extra fresh and healing fragrance.
06 of 20
Relaxing Spa Day Soap

We love this lavender dream soap recipe because it's perfect for a relaxing spa day ambiance. Use this type of soap for instant stress relief. Add lavender buds plus orange, patchouli, and lavender essential oils for a more complex blend. It may be a challenge to use fresh flower petals in a soap. They don't retain their color very well and tend to look like little brown or black dots in the soap. The trick is to lightly shred them before adding; it may take a few experiments to get it right.
07 of 20
A Little Poppy in Your Soap

This soap looks like a yummy loaf of lemon poppy seed cake. Poppy seeds are excellent for exfoliating because they remove dead skin cells, moisturize, and improve blood circulation. The color of this soap comes from a blend of essential oils, such as litsea cubeba and orange, rather than colorant. Poppy seeds are a bit heavy, so wait until the soap cools a little before adding them so they don't fall to the bottom.
Citrus Poppy Seed Swirl Soap by Humblebee & Me
08 of 20
Delicious Candy-Style Soap

Use cinnamon cocoa fragrance oil and cocoa powder for a soap that looks and smells like dessert. This melt-and-pour recipe calls for a vanilla color stabilizer. Typically, a vanilla color stabilizer turns soap tan or brown, but in this case, it enhances the cake-like color. The key to this recipe is the patience and skill required to create the even layers.
Cinnamon Cocoa Melt & Pour Soap by Soap Queen
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09 of 20
Handmade Bath Bombs

These easy fizzy bath bombs are a mixture of baking soda, citric acid, cornstarch, food coloring, and essential oils. You don't need to cure them like soap; you can use them right out of the mold for your next bath.
10 of 20
Carved Crystal Soap

These beautiful, magically shaped soaps also sparkle because of the mica and glitter additives. The beauty of this soap recipe is that it embraces imperfection. Every crystal is supposed to look lopsided when cut. This recipe is a bit involved, but if you love the look of small crystals and clusters of gemstones in the shape of soap, this project is perfect.
Crystal Soaps by A Beautiful Mess
11 of 20
Gummy Soap for Kids

Kids love anything gummy, so why not make some jiggly soap to make washing hands more fun? The key to this soap is the unflavored gelatin. Add some glitter and soap coloring to entice your kids to use the soap. Add an extra packet of gelatin to make the soap less wiggly. You don't want the soap to squirt out of your child's hands and onto the floor. Make a huge batch because gummy soap dissolves quickly and doesn't last as long as regular bar soap.
DIY Jelly Soap by Gluestickblog
12 of 20
A Pure Honey of a Soap

This soap recipe is so simple that it only requires four main ingredients: a goat's milk melt-and-pour base, raw honey, soap colorant, and fragrance. Honey in any soap naturally benefits skin thanks to its antibacterial properties, which can also brighten up a dull complexion. For a most charming milk and honey soap, use a honeycomb mold.
DIY Milk and Honey Soap by Happiness is Homemade
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13 of 20
The Gift of Basic Bath Salts

Basic bath salts make an easy gift because they're fun to make and customize. All you need is a mix of Epsom salt, sea salt, baking soda, essential oils, and coloring. It all goes into festive mason jars for gift-giving or display in your home. Experiment with different essential oil blends and soap colorants. One trick, however, is to match the color with the fragrance. Or experiment by layering various colored and scented bath salts within one jar for a rainbow effect.
14 of 20
Simple Lemon-Kissed Soap

It's tempting to add a ton of ingredients to your soap recipe, but sometimes simple is the way to go. If you're giving soap as a gift, consider a fragrance that most people would enjoy, such as lemon essential oil. Add a little yellow soap colorant to a Shea butter melt-and-pour soap base for a pretty, softly tinted, and creamy soap.
Lemon Shea Butter Soap by Simply Stacie
15 of 20
Sugar Scrub Cubes

These sweet and adorable sugar scrubs look good enough to eat, but they're actually luxurious exfoliating soaps. You may already have a few ingredients on hand, such as the sugar. The recipe also calls for some regular soap shredded to add some texture. Add lime soap coloring and lime essential oil for a refreshing treat. It's one of the easiest "soap" recipes to make, and these little cubes last for up to six months.
DIY Sugar Scrub Cubes Key Lime by A Cultivated Nest
16 of 20
Soap for Acne-Prone Skin

An important benefit of making your own soap is that you can tailor the recipe to your skin's needs. If your skin is dry, try a moisturizing milk base. On the other hand, if your skin is acne-prone, consider adding clay to help remove impurities. This soap is ideal for problem skin; it's not harsh and it's soothing at the same time. Try bentonite clay in this recipe. It's an ancient medicinal clay that many say has cleansing and healing powers.
Foaming Clay Soap by One Good Thing
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17 of 20
Soap to Soothe Sensitive Skin

Oatmeal-infused soap is popular for soothing dry, itchy, and sensitive skin. It's also easy to make at home with a goat's milk melt-and-pour base. Oatmeal has no fragrance, so it's nourishing and lovely paired with honey, almonds, and a sweet almond scent.
Almond Oatmeal Goat's Milk Soap by Mom Makes Joy
18 of 20
Muscle Relief With Epsom Salt Soaps

Why pour Epsom salt into a tub when you can make muscle relief more fun with Epsom salt soap? This soap is an easy and unusual treat you can use in the shower or a soaking bath. Simply add the muscle-relieving ingredient to a melt and pour goat's milk soap base. Then, add colorant and essential oil to make it pretty and healing.
Epsom Salt Soap by Dream a Little Bigger
19 of 20
Gentle Aloe Vera Soap

This cold-process soap recipe is gentle enough to use on your face thanks to the aloe gel and nourishing oils. Find a juicy aloe plant so you can extract fresh aloe for the soap. When you prepare the extracted aloe in a blender or food processor, it'll become fluffy like egg whites. If you have extra-sensitive skin, substitute the coconut oil for babassu oil in this recipe.
Fresh Aloe Vera Soap by The Nerdy Farm Wife
20 of 20
Bubbling Bath Bars

Make these pretty little soap bars for gifts or to inspire your bath routine. The trick to the bubbles is in the ingredients of baking soda and liquid bubble bath (but use a name-brand bubble bath for extra fizz). Together, the recipe adds loads of bubbles while soothing your skin. Look for floral soap molds to make these bath bombs gift-worthy.
Bubble Bath Bars by A Beautiful Mess