DIY Spooky Halloween Soaps

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Learn how to make cute halloween-themed soaps for gifts or party favors! These pumpkin and skull soap bars are sure to be a hit :)

There are just 11 days until Halloween! Have you decided what you’re going to be yet? This year I was thinking of dressing up Jim Halpert style–you know, the kind of Halloween costume that you put as little effort into as possible? That’s my style.

For Halloween this year, I decided to forgo buying candy (especially since very few small children make the rounds through our law-students-only apartment complex). And since I’m clearly not the queen of costumes, I instead decided to get in the Halloween spirit by making some spooky decorated soaps! Today I’ll show you how you can make two different kinds of Halloween-themed soaps: pumpkins and skulls, oh my!

YOU WILL NEED:

• White soap base (Stephenson Personal Care’s WST base)
• Clear soap base (Stephenson Personal Care’s Crystal ST base)
• Halloween-themed soap molds
• Bar soap mold
• Soap coloring (preferably NOT water based)
• A glass bowl (ideally with a spout)
• A spoon for mixing
• A spray bottle filled with a bit of rubbing alcohol (optional)

HOW TO MAKE PUMPKIN AND SKULL SOAP:

Step 1. Make your soap embeds. To do this, you’ll first need to melt down some WST white soap base. Cut your base into cubes and microwave for 15-30 second intervals until your soap base is melting, stirring after each interval. Keep an eye on your base as it is melting, since soap base can both boil over and lose its moisture by overheating!

Step 2. I made pumpkin soap embeds and skull embeds using ice cube trays with these designs. You can purchase this pumpkin mold and skull mold online or see what your local craft store has in stock.

I poured my white soap base into the skull molds and then went on to make my pumpkin embeds. To make my pumpkins orange, I simply added orange soap coloring to my melted base. Since we are going to be embedding these orange pumpkins in clear soap base, it is important that you do NOT use a water-based soap colorant, as these tend to “bleed” into the clear base over time–as little as a day!

Step 3. Let your embeds cool until completely hardened. You can help speed this process along by placing your soap in the freezer for a few minutes. Once hardened, remove your embeds and set them aside.

Step 4. Melt your clear soap base just as you did before: cut your base into cubes and melt your base down in a microwave safe bowl at 15-30 second intervals, stirring between each interval. This is where it becomes important to work fast! All soap base is prone to tiny bubbles forming as its melting, but these bubbles are particularly noticeable in clear soap base. Making sure your base does not overheat and not stirring too vigorously is very important.

Step 5. Once your clear soap base has melted, begin pouring it into the soap bar mold of your choice (you will not want to use a loaf soap mold for this project).

I first began with my pumpkin soaps. Begin by pouring a thin layer of base into the bottom of your mold (about 1/4 of an inch or ½ centimeter deep layer—not very much!). Then place your pumpkin embed face down on top of this thin layer of soap you just poured. Once it’s in place, continue filling your soap mold with clear soap base until the pumpkin embed is completely covered with soap base.

Step 6. (Optional) If you find that you have tiny bubbles on your freshly poured clear soap base, you can easily get rid of them. To do this, take out your spray bottle of rubbing alcohol and give your freshly poured soap bars a spritz or two (but not more than this) before the soap base starts to really cool—this is another reason why it is important to work fast when dealing with clear soap base! If you wait too long, these bubbles may dry in place.

To make my skull soaps, I dyed my remaining clear soap base a dark purple and repeated steps 5 and 6. It is especially important to place your skull embeds over a thin layer of clear (in this case purple clear) soap base as outlined in step 5 so that the soap base can fill in all the crevices of the skull embeds, leaving the top of your finished soap smooth.