Expedition Earth France Activity: Handmade Soap

Did you know that it wasn’t until a French scientist discovered how to make soap inexpensively that everyone began to buy it and use it? Me neither, don’t you just love homeschooling! It gives me a chance to learn all that stuff I didn’t pay attention to when I was a kid.

The French are famous for soap that is made into pretty fancy shapes scented with lovely fragrances. This craft was one of the easier one’s we’ve done, so easy in fact that our soap may become Christmas presents for family!

So what do you need?

• Some soap shavings (We purchased a block of soap from Michael’s craft store)
• Soap coloring (Also found at most hobby stores)
• Soap Fragrance (Also found at most hobby stores)
• Some sort of soap mold (I bought one at Michael’s, but you can also spread it on a cookie sheet and use cookie cutters to shape it)
• Bowl to melt soap in. (I used an old tupperware bowl that I tossed after, but actually the soap cleans out really easily, I mean it IS soap!)

Directions:

STEP 1: Melt soap in bowl for about 30 sec to 1 min.

STEP 2: Pour melted soap into molds and add coloring and fragrance. We used toothpicks to stir ours around.

STEP 3: Let soap cool until hard and pop out of mold

STEP 5: Um, take a shower? And marvel at how easy it was to make homemade soap!

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Expedition Earth Geography Curriculum Journey!