Do you want to know more about the process of making natural soap?
Kandra offers her expertise in creating hand-crafted natural soap on Soapy Friends, which is where you are able to purchase her book The Natural Soap Color Palette in the latest digital Edition or purchase the original paperback edition available on Amazon.
The creation of handmade bar soap is an enjoyable project that anyone with hands can enjoy …. and it’s a wonderful family-friendly activity! If you’re one of the more creative people that are around, You can increase the game of felting by adding some needle felting onto the bar you’ve felted.
Why the heck would you want to feel soap?
The soap is Felted, wraps the soap bar in a woolen cocoon, and offers many benefits.
Wool has a pleasant scent and is resistant to mildew.
Wool fibers have a naturally water-wicking ability that stops moisture from accumulating in the fabric. Contrary to synthetic textiles, wool won’t retain odors, and it will smell fresh simply by airing it out.
Wool has natural antimicrobial properties.
Because of the lanolin present in wool, it’s naturally antimicrobial. Research conducted at hospitals has revealed that colonies of bacterial growth are prevalent in cotton sheets, but they aren’t present in Merino blankets exposed to the same conditions.
Wool is stain – and water-resistant.
The thin waxy layer of Merino wool fibers makes wool impervious to water.
Soap made with wool is more effective!
- The water-wicking capability of wool helps keep your bar dry, which allows it to withstand the elements and last for longer.
- Wool is a mild exfoliant.
- Wool can increase the lather in your soap, even in hard water.
- The bar will not slip from your hands when you’re washing and will stay in place when you are ready to put it away.
- No longer do you need any washcloth!
Please don’t get too excited about the advantages… most of the time, it’s a lot of enjoyable! Felted soaps make excellent gifts; they are a wonderful family-friendly activity as well as for more advanced crafters… you can poke a bar of soap using a needle – yes! The stress relief is here.
OK, so what is felting?
The art of felting is among the simplest and most flexible craft activities around. It’s fun and easy! The process of felting is a fundamental procedure of shrinking and gluing wool fibers.
Moisture felting makes use of water and friction to move fibers around so that they “stick” together as the tiny scales of wool fibers become interlocked and shrink.
Needle felting involves bending the wool using specially designed needles that are barbed to create the interlocking between wool fibers.
The process of knitting (or crochet) felting is what happens when you wash (moisture felt) the knitted fabric. Sometimes, this is deliberate… sometimes it’s an incredibly big mistake you find out in the event that you did not sort your clothes properly and wash the wool sweater that you hand knit (blushes in shame).
Let’s make some felted soap.
If you’re not a crafter but you’re still interested in felted soap, pick one of my felties! I have several felted soap bars available, and you can also custom-select from the variety of patterns available.
For those who are looking for a great craft activity that children will enjoy, get some materials and make!
- Soap It is my recommendation to use all-natural handmade soap. However, any bar can be used.
- Wool roving It’s simply a way to describe wool that’s been washed and sorted. However, it hasn’t been spun into yarn yet. Merino wool is the most effective, and you can buy the thread in any color that fits your preferences.
- Stocking made of nylon, soapnet bag to ensure that things are secure as you sit.
How to feel soap:
Duration: 45 minutes
The soap bar is wrapped in wool roving.
It is important to have adequate wool so that it covers the soap and wraps it in various directions (across the width and then the length, then mix it into). It is possible to wrap the wool in the same color or combine different colors to create various effects.
Put the soap wrapped in wool inside the stocking made of nylon.
This will help keep the wool in place and provide extra friction to help get the wool fibers interlocked.
Feel it: This portion is a bit of patience. However, it is not too long… just about 10-15 minutes.
The soap is wrapped under hot water and scrubbed! Put the soap in cold water and scrub! Repeat the process for about 10 minutes, using cold and hot water. I typically have two bowls of each and dip, scrub, or dip and scrub. There will be a lot of lather forming, which will dissolve with cool water. Suppose you’re planning to be rubbing several bars. In that case, I strongly suggest wearing rubber gloves to guard your hands from exposure to the water (unless you’re truly into pruning fingers, which you should not have to… an over-saturated skin is very easy to cut!)
Dry it off.
A bar that has been felted will take anywhere from a couple of days to dry. It all depends on how thickly you wrap a bar of soap with wool.
Optional: Add a bling using the needle:
This is how I normally do. (I love needle-felting… And who doesn’t want to stab the same thing repeatedly using needles? It’s an excellent way to relieve stress!) You’ll need a hand for felting that you can buy at any craft store once you purchase wool roving. The principle is to add new colors as well as layers of wool over the base of your felted thread and then make a stab! The needle you choose has barbs that provide the needed friction that will bind yarn fibers.
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