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.
I’ve had this idea for a banana soap in my head for quite some time. Something like a banana cream pie soap maybe. But what would the end result look like and would I be happy with it? I started to do some research and saw a variety of banana soaps that ranged from very brown to very speckled to creamy yellow with few specks. Some soap makers reported the specks would disappear after a while. Well, I decided it was time to do my own little research project on using bananas in soap.
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I live in the Garden State. Yes that’s right, New Jersey. The state known for it’s closeness to NYC, it’s stinky highways, industrial areas, and also it’s beaches. What most people don’t know is that we do have plenty of greenery here, as the name suggests. Folks really love to grow their veggies in our neck of the woods and when summer rolls around, we have cucumbers for dayyys….
This post was originally published on May 8th, 2018 and updated on January 23rd, 2019. I’ve added an update an how the colors and scent have fared over time. So, scroll down to the bottom to see what this soap looks like after 9 months.
I’ve been playing around with botanicals and design ideas lately. I kept wanting to throw stuff (clays, dried flowers, etc) into my lye water, just to see what would happen.
Why – you may ask – would I want to put them into the lye solution rather than the more traditional approach to infuse them in oil? Well, cold oil infusion takes 6-8 weeks and even heat oil infusion takes 2-4 hours on the stove – Mama ain’t got time for that. I also thought this could be an easy way for beginners to get a good color result….
Right around this time of year I totally start to sound like a broken record. It goes something like this:”I really don’t like winter. I’m cold. Everything looks so gray. I need some sun. Why do we even live here?”… And on, and on it goes. And every year as my tolerance to the cold and gray seems to diminish so does my skin’s tolerance to dry air and extreme temperature swings – arrgh, the itch is real, you guys.
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I love to add fresh ingredients to my soaps. It’s a fun way to try something new on a whim since most fruits and veggies are easy enough to come by. I also find that they can bring interest and label appeal to your soaps. In this recipe I’m trying something a little more exotic: papaya paired with turmeric. The result is a wonderfully creamy and nourishing turmeric papaya soap.
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We usually don’t send family Christmas cards around to our friends and relatives. The sheer thought of it is paralyzing to me. Maybe it’s because Christmas cards were never a thing where I grew up or maybe it’s because Mister Tinker could care less. And then there’s the logistics of it: Am I supposed to have my mantle decorated in mid November so that I can pose the kids in front of it? Because let’s face it – it will take me at least a month to design, order and mail them. And then there is the photo shoot itself. I don’t have the worst photography skills, but trying to photograph my kids is equivalent to photographing wildlife. You have to be sneaky, you have to be quick, and forget it if they know you’re lurking there with your camera….
Today we’re going back to basics and will talk about how to make bath bombs. Making bath bombs is fun and you can really get creative with it. My kids absolutely love them and they make for really nice homemade gifts. To me it is so much fun to see the bath bomb fizzing away in the tub. It simply gives your bath time this special sparkle and excitement while at the same time delivering gorgeous scents and skin loving goodies. What’s not to like?…
Finally the unicorn craze has reached Tweak & Tinker HQ. Better late than never. And let me tell you it has hit hard. These days all I seem to be able to come up with are unicorn-y designs. These super adorable unicorn bath bombs are just the beginning (muhahaha).
This is a great project to make with your kids. It’s easy enough (even my 2 year old had fun helping), but the fun part is when they take the bath bombs out of their molds and see how the design turned out.
Ready? Let’s make some unicorn bath bombs!…
Big, elaborate projects can be fun and rewarding. Like the one time I made Blossom Soap Macarons , a project that took a lot of time and practice. Lately I’ve been in the mood for short and sweet projects. Things that don’t require a ton of ingredients or equipment and still come out awesome, of course. These little dinosaur bath bombs (technically bath fizzies) check all the boxes and they’re so cute I can’t even….
I had this little bottle of precious Vetiver essential oil sitting on my desk for a very long time. My plan was to use it in a cold process soap recipe. Every now and then I would open it and take a sniff. I was intrigued by the thick, viscous amber colored fluid. The smell was like no essential oil I had tried up to that point: woody, earthy with a hint of smokiness.
But I didn’t know what to do with it. I had read up on different ways to blend it with other essential oils, and everyone seemed to say that it was good for anchoring scents, but too much would overpower the blend. What I wanted was to figure out a way to have the Vetiver front and center with supporting notes that would enhance it’s deep masculine earthiness….