Here is a fantastic easy DIY gift idea: Easy Melt and Pour Handmade Soap Recipes for Christmas with Pine & Frankincense Essential Oils
It’s time to plan ahead now for your DIY Christmas gifts you plan on making. A super easy DIY gift idea is this homemade soap recipe for Christmas!
You just need 4 ingredients and less than an hour of your time, you will get 12 homemade soap bars. It’s so much fun making your own soap, and using a melt and pour soap base is the easiest way to do so! These holiday soap bars have a wonderful Christmas aroma combination of pine and frankincense – a glorious scent to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year. 😉
What You’ll Need for your easy Homemade Soap Recipe for Christmas:
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- 2 lb block of melt & pour soap base with Shea Butter – this is enough for 12 bars of soap.
**FYI on soap base quality is that it is worth it to pay a bit more and get a natural version – like the Our Earth’s Secret brand. I had a much better experience with natural soaps as they melt better and feel better on your skin. I’ve tried cheaper and it’s just not worth the savings in my opinion. You may be able to find this particular soap base at a craft store as well. It’s an all natural soap base with all natural ingredients.
- Silicone Mold
- Pine Pure Essential Oil
- Frankincense Pure Essential Oil
- Red Jojoba beads that I ordered on Etsy. The specific seller I ordered from is now out of stock – so order what you can find.
- 2 cup glass measuring cup (Pyrex is my favorite)
- Christmas ribbon for wrapping.
- *Makes 12 bars – perfect for great handmade gifts that contain Christmas scents!
How do you make holiday season melt and pour soap? Follow the Simple Tutorial Steps Below:
- You need to start by cutting up half of your 2lb block of soap into cubes.
This soap is very easy to cut with a sharp knife. Place the cubes into your Pyrex measuring cup. I start with only half because only 1lb will fit in my Pyrex measuring cup at a time.
2. If you have a larger glass container, you can go ahead and melt your soap all in one batch.
Microwave it in 30 second intervals, stirring each time. The picture above is what mine looked like after one minute.
Continue heating and stirring until it is completely melted and smooth. It will be around 3 minutes.
How Do I Make Christmas Soap?
3. An optional idea for this Christmas soap is to add a bit of fresh pine needles for a bit of color, texture, and authentic pine scent.
I have a heavy iron herb chopper that I used to cut up the pine needles. Here is a similar herb chopper that would probably work even better.
I would be sure this soap is used right away though as the needles may rot over time. I would say this soap has a 6 month shelf life, and if not used after that, then throw it away. You can leave out the pine needles all together and just rely on the pine essential oil for the natural scent.
4. add about 1 teaspoon of chopped pine needles and a tablespoon of red jojoba beads to the melted soap base.
*Note – you want to pull your melted soap out of the microwave as soon as it is melted. If the soap gets too hot, then the jojoba beads could melt, and we don’t want that to happen in this melt and pour soap recipe!
Which Essential Oils Do I Use For Christmas Soap?
5. Then add 10-15 drops of both pine and frankincense essential oils. You can also experiment with balsam fir or any Christmas blend you have.
If you want a bolder scent, then I recommend doubling this amount.
The combination of pine and frankincense is just one of my favorite scents that represent Christmas. Feel free to try other evergreen scents like balsam fir, myhrr, or just peppermint for a candy cane Christmas soap recipe! Or, just come up with your own holiday essential oil blend! (if you do – be sure to share in the comments!!)
Some of you may want to use fragrance oils, which you are free to use. I just prefer having an all-natural soap with no artificial fragrance oils in mine. (ZERO judgement – I promise!)
I left the soap base white as I liked the color of the jojoba beads plus the pine needles. If you like a bit more color, feel free to add some soap colorants to the soap base before you pour it.
6. Stir that together one last time and pour the soap into the soap mold. If you let the jojoba beads sit too long in the hot soap, they will melt, so the sooner you pour and it starts to cool, the better. You do not need to use just a “normal” bar soap mold. Check out some more silicone molds you can use over here:
Let these bars sit for a few hours in a cool place until they are completely cool before you pop them out of the mold.
If you want to wrap them with these free printable paper wraps, fill out the form below to get the PDF e-mailed to you and you can print, cut, and wrap each bar with them! They make perfect holiday gifts!
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I wrapped mine in some Christmas ribbon for a festive look as a nice finishing touch before I add them to a Christmas gift basket!
Great Gift Giving Ideas for Homemade soap recipes:
- Purchase gift cards and add a bar a soap with it
- Teacher Gift
- Stocking Stuffer
- Gift for Grandma
- Christmas Day Party Favors for a Large Family Meal
- Add to a DIY Spa Day gift basket
If you want recipes to 11 other melt & pour soap recipes, that can be used as the perfect homemade gift, grab my eBook over here!
Or if you are looking for more soap making ideas and only need a few ideas rather than an entire eBook, check out the Fall Scented soap, Lavender soap, and Lemon Poppy Seed soap recipes!
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Ruth says
wanted to print out the recipe would have been nice to be able to do that. pretty excited to make look great for christmas
Maura says
I guess I figured that the pictures were so helpful in the step by step process that I never considered a text only recipe. I will add that to my to-do list and update my soap posts. Thanks for sharing your feedback!