Fresh and Summery Loofah Melt & Pour Soap Recipe

These summer fresh, exfoliating soaps are super simple to make - the perfect project for beginners and experienced soapers alike!

This recipe will teach you how to embed our Loofah Slices in Clear Melt & Pour Soap. These soaps look and smell great, and will keep your skin feeling fresh and rejuvenated with every use!

If your Loofah looks a bit bent out of shape, soak it for a minute in water, and you'll find you can actually mould them to fit any mould shape.

You can see our whole range of Loofah products HERE and for more usage tips, we have written a page of tips on using Loofah HERE

We've made life easy by using our Silicone Rectangle 12 Cavity Mould, and also, for a slightly softer edged style soap bar, our range of Budget Wise Deep Silicone Moulds are perfect for reshaped loofah slices!  (You'll see our Heavy Duty Rounded Rectangle Mid Size Mould in the graphics but this has now been deleted).

To make all the soaps, which makes 9 Loofah Soaps, each weighing around 120g.  You'll need approximately 1600g of Melt & Pour Base, mostly clear, with about 400g of a white coloured base to make all the variations plus extra colours and fragrances. As you see, I've mixed it up, so I have a range of different soaps to suit several different themes.

• Approximately 1kg Natural Melt & Pour Soap Base cut into cubes
• Loofah Slices

  We used these fragrance and colour combinations:

• Lemongrass & Exotic Lime Fragrance with Deep Seagreen Liquid Pigment Dispersion
• Night Violet Fragrance with Brilliant Blue Liquid Lake
• Lemon Verbena and Black Currant and Pomegranate Fragrances with Sunflower Yellow Liquid Lake

• Note: You'll need approximately 5 - 8g/ml Fragrance for each 500g of Melt & Pour Soap Base

• Isopropyl Alcohol in a Spritzer Bottle - For dissipating bubbles and for spritzing the layers to ensure they "stick" together
  
  

Equipment:

Stirring spoons or spatulas
Microwave safe jug/s - Each needs to hold 750ml
Electronic Scales - helpful but not essential
A Thermometer is useful, but not essential

For colours you can choose any of our colours, we have included a Liquid Dispersion and a fresh fragrance in the trolley items.

For any of these soaps, have the soap no hotter than 60°C, pouring closer to 50°C will help anchor the loofah within the base of the mould cavity.

Method: 

• Set out the ingredients, equipment and moulds, a jug or bowl of water and loofah slices ready to go.
• We recommend setting the "shape" of the loofah several hours in advance to allow them to dry out again in the mould cavity. However, if you are just placing the loofah in the mould cavities without wetting them, move straight on to melting your soap.

• Once you have arranged all the loofah slices into the moulds (and allowed them to dry so they don't mildew), dice the soap base into small ice cube sized chunks, and place in the microwave jugs.
• For the white Heavty Duty Mould Rounded Rectangle, we used 380g Low Sweat Clear Melt & Pour Coconut Soap Base with 4g/ml (4 droppers) Celestial Waters Fragrance approximately 8- 10 drops Brilliant Blue Liquid Lake Colour.
• Melt the soap first, lightly cover the jug of Melt & Pour Soap cubes, and put in the microwave to melt on medium or medium low. This may take a few minutes, so keep an eye on it so it doesn't overheat.

• Add Brilliant Blue Liquid Lake until you reach the depth of colour you like (I used about 10 drops for the four soaps), then stir in the 3 - 4 droppers of Celestial Waters Fragrance, and carefully pour over the loofah.
• I like to half fill the cavity so the soap can absorb a little into the loofah, and then top up.
• Spritz with alcohol to remove any residual bubbles.

• If the Loofah is not snug in the mould, it may float a little, use a popstick to pop it back under until the soap has cool sufficiently to have it stay put!

• Let soap set completely before unmoulding.
  
  

For the Silicone Mould:

• As you can see, I mixed it up! If making the two layer soap with a white base, allow the first clear layer to set up enough to touch, spray with alcohol and then pour over the white soap.
• The quantity of colours, fragrance and base for each pour you make will depend on whether you are mixing it up , as I have, or just making one colour pours of clear soap.
  
  
• Dice your required quantity of Clear Melt & Pour Soap, and melt in the microwave as described previously.
• Now Colour the soap. Use 5 - 10g/ml of fragrance per 500g of Soap base and stir well to combine
• The fragrance or if you are using
• Lemon Verbena and Black Currant and Pomegranate Fragrances (I used a ratio of 3:2).
• Assuming you are making some single colour soaps, fill these mould cavities right to the top.
• If you are making some with white "backs" on them, three quarter fill these mould cavities.
• Spritz with alcohol to dissipate any bubbles on the surface of the soap.
• Allow the soaps to set up.
• For the two colour soaps, gently touch the surface of the soap to check it is firm enough to pour the new layer over the top.
• Spritz the surface of the soap with alcohol to allow this layer to stick.
• Melt some white soap, spritz the surface with alcohol, and carefully pour into the mould over the first layer (the soap should not be hotter than 60°C).

• Unmould by pulling the sides from silicone mould to release the air lock, and push thumbs along the base and soap loaf will slowly fall down onto the bench. For the Heavy Duty Rounded Rectangle, invert and press soaps out.
• We re-melted our offcuts and made some pastel coloured bars.  To make these into an oval shaped bar, simply trim off the edges flush with the edges of the loofah slice.
• You can choose to present your soaps with either the smooth side (from the bottom of the mould) as the "front", or if you prefer the texture of the loofah showing, use this side as the front.

If using the "add to trolley button" note that ONLY Deep Seagreen colour and Lemongrass & Exotic Lime Fragrance are included with 1kg clear soap.  There is no alcohol or spritzer as there is no white soap.  Add any other ingredients you want to include manually :)