Pumpkin Soap Project

We have a fun Fall project that can be done with the kids - little pumpkin soaps.

These cute little soaps are made using the hand-milled method. This method requires bars of pure, white, unscented soap. You can buy them at your local drug store. Make sure they are unscented. Usually hand-milled soap recipes require the additives such as herbs, cocoa butter, shea butter, etc., But since this is a project for kids, we'll keep it simple and fun. For this project you will need:

2 bars of unscented, white soap

1/2 cup water

A kitchen grater

A bowl

Pumpkin scented soap fragrance

A wooden spoon

A double boiler

Non-toxic acrylic soap paints in orange, green, and black

Artist paint brushes


In a bowl, shred the bars of white soap with your grater until you get 2 cups of shredded soap.

Add the water to the shredded soap. Place the soap/water into a double boiler and place on the stovetop range with medium heat. The soap will slowly begin to absorb the water. You may stir gently with a wooden spoon but remember not to mix too quickly because bubbles may form. The mixture will begin to thicken. As the water becomes absorbed, the mixture will start to become stringy. This is normal.

When it reaches this stringy stage, remove it from the heat and add 15 to 20 drops of pumpkin fragrance oil and stir until it is equally distributed and absorbed. Make sure that the fragrance oil you are using is safe for the skin. The soap mixture will be thick and clumpy and when the mixture cools enough to touch, take parts and form them with your hands into little balls. While the mixture is still soft and pliable, take little pieces and roll and shape them with your thumb and index finger into little tubular shapes and attach them on top of the balls to form stems. After you have used up the whole mixture and shaped all of the pumpkins, place them on a rack and let them dry for a few days. When they are dry, take your acrylic soap paints (you can use regular non-toxic acrylic paint but the problem is that it won't adhere as well to the surface of the soap, so you're better off using soap paint.) and paint the pumpkins orange and the stems green and if you want to you can even paint little faces on them. When they are dry, you will have adorable and fragrant little pumpkin soaps.