Mother-Daughter Soap Day

March 12, 2011 by | 18 Comments

My girls are on Spring Break, so yesterday I asked my older daughter, who is a fourth grader, if she would like to help me design a new soap. Here’s what she came up with:

Blueberry Muffin Soap Sketch

Once we had a plan, I came up with the recipe which would require two batches of soap – one for the soap balls, and one for the rest of the soap. I had her do most of the measuring, starting with the oils:

Measuring oils for the Blueberry Muffin Soap

Since we were making a small batch, I had her melt the solid oils in the microwave and stir them until they dissolved:

Stirring the warmed oils

The next lesson was how to use a disposable pipette. It takes a bit of skill!!

Measuring out fragrance

I mixed up the lye water on the first batch, and stirred it into the oils when the temps were right. Then I gave her some safety gear and prepped her to handle my monster of a stick blender. Because, really, isn’t that one of the best parts of making soap?

Stick blending the soap for blueberry soap balls

We used the microwave to hot process this batch. After figuring out that I had left out the olive oil, I had to add it in and cook it some more. By then, a lot of the water had evaporated, so we had very crumbly soap. Finally after adding a bit of water back into it, the soap balls were a lot easier to form!

Making blueberry soap balls
Silly girl!!

Next, we made our second batch of soap, pulled out about a cup of soap that will remain white for the “frosting” on top, added fragrance to the main part of the soap, and colored it a light blue.

Stirring the color and fragrance into the second batch of soap

We poured a small layer of plain, light blue soap in the bottom of the mold, then stirred in most of our blueberry soap balls and poured the rest of it in. We had to blend the white soap a bit more to get it to thicken up since we hadn’t added any fragrance to it. My daughter was very clear that the white part had to be textured. Then she put some of the extra blueberry soap balls on top.

Randomly placing soap balls on top

And of course, it had to have a sprinkling of glitter!

Adding the glitter on top

We’ve been waiting all day to cut the soap to see how it compares to her sketch. Ta da!

Blueberry Muffin Soap

My daughter’s comment as we were in the middle of making the first batch, “Mom, if you asked me if I wanted to make soap or something else, I would probably say, ‘something else’. Making soap is a lot of work!”

Update: My younger daughter finally got in on the action too! You can see the results of her soap here.

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  2. Love that soap! Your daughter is a sweetie and definitely has a future as a soap designer 🙂

  3. looks great! funny, that’s exactly how i “design” my soaps too, lol:) future soaper in the works?

  7. Another master soapmaker in the making! thank you for sharing with us, what a wonderful trip. The soap is beautiful! your Daughter did a fantastic job, what a cutie! she looks like you Amy:)

  8. That is one very pretty soap and your daughter looked like she thoroughly enjoyed the whole process – but yep, it’s a lot of work! Loving the soap!

  9. Love the soap! It looks great! Ah, the smell of warm blueberry muffins right out of the oven…she picked a good one! I’m so glad y’all are starting off your spring break with such a wonderful time together. 🙂

  10. Amy,how nice your daughter wanted to help – I see soapmaking in her future for sure.She did a great job – a chip off the lovely and creative soap cake I see.

    My daughter is eleven, and is convinced I am the biggest soap nerd ever. Soooo, there is no way she will help me make soap.lol! Oh well!

  11. MARVELOUS! I love the look -like blue bubbles floating….suspended in mid-air! What a lovely ending to a great effort, congratulations to Mother and Daughter -that’s teamwork! 🙂

  13. Hi Amy,

    Your daughter is adorable and clearly having a great time as your junior partner soap maker. What a wonderful way to spread the joy of soap maker. She certainly has caught the fun bug in making those blueberry soap balls.

  16. This is so cool! I’ve started putting MY daughter to work, too! :0) Several of her drawings have ended up on my labels. It’s so fun when you can share your interests with your kids…and important, too, for her to realize that it IS “work” and not just “playing around” (even if you love it)! Thank you for sharing this!

  17. I love seeing your daughter make soap. It makes me look forward to having kids! haha, seriously It does 🙂 I want to teach them how to make soap!!!

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