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Tweak and Tinker

Learn to make beautiful bath and body products from scratch. Here you find free tutorials for making cold process soaps, bath bombs, body butters, face masks, serums and a lot more.

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Cold Process Soap

Activated Charcoal Soap Recipe (With or Without Lye)

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Mysterious, woodsy, yet bright and refreshing is how I would describe the scent of this wonderful charcoal soap. Certainly more a masculine kind of scent, but one that might appeal to men and women alike. The best thing: YOU can make this soap, no matter if you’re a beginner looking for a melt and pour soap recipe or a veteran soap maker who’s comfortable working with lye. Here you’ll find detailed instructions for both: an easy layered soap (using a soap base) and a more advanced swirled cold process soap.

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Banana Soap Recipe (With Heavy Cream) – Cold Process

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banana soap recipe with decorated top

Last month I experimented with different ways to use bananas in soap. I wanted to find a visually pleasing outcome for today’s banana soap recipe. The results ranged from light cream color with a little bit of specks to really brown with lots of specks. You can check out the full post here or see the the picture below for a quick side by side comparison.

results of experiment for banana soap recipe
Top left: greenish banana, not gelled; top right: ripe banana, not gelled; bottom left: greenish banana, gelled; bottom right: ripe banana, gelled

For this banana soap recipe I decided to use a fairly ripe banana since I knew from my experiments that I would get this awesome speckled effect which would contrast well with the white piped top. After I was done making the soap I put it in the freezer since I absolutely wanted to avoid gelling.

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Goat Milk Soap Recipe (with AND without Lye)

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Goat milk soap is one of the most popular kinds of handmade soaps out there. If you’ve ever had the pleasure to try a bar you know why: goat milk makes for a very gentle, nourishing and decadently creamy soap. Give this easy goat milk soap recipe a try – you’ll love it!

melt and pour soap base goat milk soap

Today I’ll show you how to make a wonderfully rich and soothing goat milk soap. And whether you’re a veteran cold process soap maker or a newbie who prefers melt and pour soap (without handling lye), I’ve got you covered with these easy step-by-step tutorials. The result with both techniques is a gorgeous oatmeal, milk and honey soap that everyone in your family will want to get their paws on!

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How to Make Breast Milk Soap (With OR Without Lye)

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This breast milk soap recipe is an easy and great way to use any leftover breast milk you might have. The no lye recipe is quick and easy especially for beginners.

It’s milk central at Tweak & Tinker HQ these days. There’s milk spit up, milk throw up, milk leakage and pumping. Let me just say: We don’t have a milk shortage around here.

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Gentle Bastille Baby Soap Recipe

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This gentle bastille baby soap recipe is great for delicate baby skin and for anyone that has sensitive skin. It’s super charged with skin loving ingredients like chamomile infused olive oil, Shea butter and colloidal oatmeal to gently cleanse the skin without stripping it of it’s natural barrier mantel.

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How to Make Soap at Home ~ Step by Step

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Today I’m going to show you how to make soap in this detailed step by step guide to homemade soap making. This beginners tutorial will walk you through how to make soap with lye (cold process method) and you won’t even have to buy a special mold – we’re upcycling an empty Pringles can 😉 Hope you enjoy making these beautiful round soaps as much as I have 🙂

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Peppermint Coffee Cold Process Soap

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A scrubby bar of soap made with strong brewed espresso, coffee grounds and bright peppermint essential oil. A soap recipe not just for coffee lovers.

You know what’s a life saver for new moms? (Hint: not a baby gadget.) It’s the Starbucks drive thru!!! Seriously though: you’re stuck in the house with your little nugget, it’s the dead of winter, flu season, you’re craving a latte and some sort of human interaction- the drive thru it is.

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Christmas Tree Cold Process Soap Recipe with Essential Oils

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It’s that time of year again… crunch time for cold process soap makers. If you want to get your Christmas soaps done in time for holiday gift giving you need to get cracking. I’m pretty late to the game this year myself, but not to worry, I’ve got us covered with this recipe. It uses a pretty steep water discount which allows this Christmas tree soap to cure in about 3 weeks. Procrastinators rejoice 🙂

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Rose Clay & Coconut Milk Face Soap Recipe

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A gentle luxurious face soap recipe with nourishing and cleansing rose clay and coconut milk powder.

I’ve been resisting using handmade soap on my face for the longest time. My own handmade soap mind you – where I know exactly how it’s made and what went in. I always had in the back of my mind what had been drilled into our heads at esthetitian school: “Never ever use soap on your face”.

I could see, that for someone with very oily, acne prone skin a nice bar of charcoal tea tree soap could be beneficial, but for my dry and sensitive skin? Uh, no thanks.

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