The soap cabinet

Handmade soap, without the lye.

Melt and pour soap lets you make beautiful bars in an afternoon: no caustic chemicals, no weeks of curing. Learn the method, how to scent and colour safely, and where the great traditional soaps of the Mediterranean come from.

Open the cabinet

Tall stacks of green olive-oil soap cubes curing in an arched stone room, arranged in open towers so air can circulate — Aleppo soap stacked in open towers to cure. Photo: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A workshop table with silicone soap moulds, small bottles of colourant and mica, and jars of melted soap in a water bath

No. 01

Melt & pour

Bases, equipment and the method, step by step.

A close-up of dried lavender flower buds in shades of blue-grey and violet

No. 02

Scent & colour

Fragrance rates, micas, clays, botanicals and layers.

Rows of pink and red soap bars stacked in a wooden display case, the front bars stamped Savon de Marseille

No. 03

Traditional soaps

Aleppo, Marseille and Castile, and how soap is made.

Photo: Shixart1985, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: MatthiasKabel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Ermell, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The method

Five steps to a bar of soap

The soap base has already been made, so the craft is all in melting, scenting, colouring and pouring.