If you have never tried homemade soap, then you are missing out on something that is beautiful, wonderful and relaxing. Homemade soap is good for the skin, and leaves your skin feeling smooth and silky. Most people avoid making homemade soap because they are afraid of lye. Lye is dangerous if not used properly, but you can’t make real homemade soap without it.

On the other hand, you do not have to personally handle the lye to make your own homemade soaps. You can use your microwave to make your own hand milled soap quickly and easily by adding your own selection of scents, colors and additives using a pre-made rebatch base.

A pre-made base is a plain soap base with no colors, additives or fragrances added. It’s just pure oils, butters, water and lye. Someone else handles the lye when they make the pre-made rebatch base and you get the benefits of adding your own selection of fragrances, colorants, herbs, botanicals or any other delightful additive.

When using a pre-made base, you are able to make your own homemade soaps without having to worry about lye burns or explosions. The process is simple and easy, if you can cook, then you can make homemade hand milled soaps.

To make your own hand milled soaps, you will need a bowl, cheese grater, an unscented pound of rebatch soap base, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of water or milk, a spoon, a microwave safe bowl, an empty Pringles potato chips can and a microwave.

You will also need a tablespoon of your favorite skin safe soap fragrance and food coloring or a teaspoon of dried botanicals or herbs.

First grate one pound of unscented rebatch soap base into your microwave safe bowl and toss your olive oil and water in the shreds. Melt it for one minute in your microwave. Stir your heated soap well, then melt for an additional 30 seconds in the microwave. You should see what looks like fluffy foam along the edge of your rebatch soap base. If you do not see this foam, then heat in 30 second intervals, stirring well every 30 seconds until you see the fluffy foam appear.

Once the foam appears, stir your soap again and add 5 to 10 drops of desired food colorant or a teaspoon of dried herbs or botanicals (or both if you wish) and stir well until the colorant or botanicals are distributed evenly.

Melt for an additional 30 seconds in the microwave, then remove and add your fragrance. Working fast, stir your fragrance into your soap well then spoon the hot mixture into an empty Pringles potato chips can. Press some wax paper onto the top of the soap, and with your fingers covered in a towel (to prevent them from getting burned, the soap is hot), press the soap down gently to remove any air bubbles.

Place your soap in the freezer for 2 hours. Once removed from freezer, tear the Pringles can away from your soap and slice your soap log into several slices. You will have beautiful hand sized round soaps to use or to share as gifts, and you can proudly say, “I made this wonderful soap myself”!