Make your own oats and goat’s milk soap

Whip up a batch of homemade oats and goat’s milk soap.

Usher in the Year of the Goat with a batch of homemade oats and goat’s milk soap.

We are not making soap from scratch, but rebatching soap. That means giving an existing bar of soap a new lease on life by changing its shape, scent and colour.

To usher in the Year of the Goat, we are using goat’s milk in our soap. Goat’s milk is packed with vitamins essential for healthy skin.

Homemade soap is also a great gift idea for Valentine’s Day.

Stuff you’ll need: Soap, microwave-safe bowl, spatula, moulds, oats, food grater and goat’s milk.

DIY Oats and Goat’s Milk Soap

Skill level: Intermediate

Time required: 1.5 hours

1 Pick a fine food grater and start grating the soap into a bowl. Some muscle power is required. Use two bars of soap.

2 Add 200ml of goat’s milk to the gratings.

3 Stir the soap and milk mixture with a spatula. Blend well. The texture should resemble mash potatoes.

4 Before heating up the mixture, start preparing the moulds. Lay them out and sprinkle bits of oats into each one. You can also use other materials such as dried lavender.

5 Place mixture in the microwave and heat for one minute at a time. Remove and stir. It took three minutes to turn our mixture into liquid that resembles melted ice cream.

6 Take care to not burn yourself. At this point, you have to work fast spooning the mixture into the moulds before the soap starts setting.

7 Once the moulds are filled with soap, top off with another sprinkle of oats to add texture and colour.

■ Lee Mei Li is the author of Hello Kitty Crochet. She crafts and blogs at amiguruMEI.com. E-mail her at [e-mail]

Links to more soapmaking tutorials >>

It's in the soap

Who knew there were so many ways to make soap? The following tutorials will set you off to a good start.

1. Lovelygreens.com has a detailed explanation on natural soapmaking for beginners.

2. Pinkpistachio.com shares a lovely tutorial on how to make glycerin soap filled with strawberry, mint and lemon zest.

3. Essentiallyeclectic.com has a yummy recipe on making a rustic bar of cinnamon hazelnut coffee soap.

4. Coconut lime soap sounds good. Tutorial at Offbeatandinspired.com.

5. Make a batch of lemon poppy seed soap. Tutorial at Gluesticksblog.com.

6. Whip up a series of custom stamped soap. Tutorial at duhbe.com.

7. Make these pretty purple lavender lemon soap from Apumpkinandaprincess.com.

8. Cucumbersome.com shares an interesting Earl Grey tea-infused soap tutorial.

9. Macaron soap anyone? Step-by-step at Poppytalk.com.

10.Brew your own organic liquid hand soap. Tutorial at Liagriffith.com.