Adding herbs & Flowers
Making your own at-home soaps is a hands-on hobby that can nourish your skin and allow you to embrace your inner creativity. At ZenseMe, we love to add herbs and flowers to our homemade soaps to make them unique. It’s the perfect way to infuse a little personality into your soaps. If you’ve ever found yourself walking around smelling soaps in a store, it’s usually the herbs and flowers that draw you in. These natural ingredients can protect and hydrate your skin, giving you better results than over-the-counter products.
We’re telling you all about our favourite herbs and flowers and how you can add these to your soap recipe.
The Herbs to Use for Your Soap
You’re spoilt for choice with herbs that you can add to your homemade soaps. It’s a good idea to consider things like therapeutic benefits and smell when choosing your herbs.
We’ve rounded up a few of our favourite herbs that we love at ZenseMe.
- Chamomile has a soft fragrance that is perfect for a relaxing homemade soap.
- Lemon balm will kill bacteria, making it a great choice to add for a soap you intend to use in place of handwash.
- Peppermint is a natural antibacterial and will give your organic soap a squeaky-clean scent. It cleanses your skin without causing irritation.
- Rosemary is an anti-inflammatory that can treat skin conditions like eczema by hydrating the skin. It’s also good at tackling acne breakouts.
The Flowers to Use for Your Soap
Flowers are the perfect way to add a botanical twist to your homemade soaps. You’ll get a lovely natural fragrance and scent that will linger without irritating your skin.
Here are a few of our favourite flowers to use in your homemade soap:
- Calendula is a nourishing flower that tightens your skin to create a plumper appearance while protecting your collagen and elastin.
- Dandelions have been shown to help with cellular turnover to prevent premature aging while also reducing skin inflammation.
- Lavender gives you a relaxing scent that will put you straight to sleep. This flower is an antibacterial that will help treat body acne, scarring, and wounds. You can add it into your soap to make it a gentle exfoliator to help remove dead skin cells.
- Rose petals will soften your soap and nourish the skin, thanks to their vitamin-rich composition. It’ll hydrate your skin and help with moisture retention. (It’s best to add rose petals on top of your soap!)
Compared to soaps you purchase in department stores, adding herbs and flowers can help you make an organic and vegan soap that gives you a luxury experience. You can customise your choice of herbs and flowers to address specific skin concerns to make it one of a kind.
What to Look Out For
Before using your herbs, you want to make sure they’re stored in a dry place, like a sealed container. It’s worth investing in a few glass jars if you’re intending to turn your homemade soaps into your new hobby.
If you want to cut the herbs and flowers down into a smaller size, you can use a spice grinder to turn them into a powder-like consistency. It’s easy to go a little overboard with your herbs and flowers. You want to usually weigh it out with 1-2tsps for every pound of oil that you’re using.
Dried vs Fresh Herbs and Flowers
It’s a good idea to opt for dried herbs where possible. If you add a fresh herb to your soap batter, you risk issues like mould occurring. The water that is still inside the herbs and flowers allows microorganisms to continue to grow when you add it to your soap. The drying process for herbs removes the water and means you don’t have to worry about bacteria or microorganisms reducing the life span of your organic soap.
Not every herb falls into this category! Some herbs are drier by nature and can be added in fresh. These herbs include lavender, rosemary, and thyme.
When it comes to flowers, the rules are slightly different. You want to avoid using dried roses and lavender as these will lose their colour. If you want to use a flower that will maintain its colour, keep an eye out for yellow flowers like calendula. You can keep your more vibrant flowers and add them to the top of your soaps, so you can still get the look and benefits of the flower.
Fresh flowers are just like herbs and can be a breeding place for bacteria and mould. If you decide to use fresh flowers, it’s a good idea to puree them beforehand, but this should only be used for yellow and gold flowers to avoid browning.
How To Add Herbs and Flowers To Your Soaps
It’s worth noting that if you place your dried herbs in whole, they will often look darker in your soap once it’s all set. If you want a more sprinkled effect, you can pulse your herbs using a blender or by cutting them up beforehand. The same tip applies to flowers, although you may want to cut these by hand for a more uniform look.
One of the easiest ways to incorporate your herbs and flowers into your handmade soap is through essential oils. You can add them alongside the essential oils to the batter of your soap. When you infuse these with your essential oils, you’ll get a more potent colour and the added benefit of the therapeutic properties.
If you want to create an Instagram-ready soap, you can get creative and add flowers or herbs to the top of your soap. You can sprinkle these on top of the soap after it’s set and add a few sprays of witch hazel to help the petals stick to your soap. You want to avoid putting the soap into a box or covering it, as this can cause your herbs and flowers to lose their colour.
Are you looking to experiment with handmade soaps? At ZenseMe, our luxury melt-and-pour soap making kit is the perfect way to get started with your new hobby!
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