Adding dried loofah to soap not only looks good but makes an excellent natural exfoliator that is particularly effective on knees and elbows or when used on the skin before applying any tanning products.
Loofah is grown from a plant that’s very similar to the cucumber plant (in fact it is a very close cousin of the cucumber plant). Once the blossom from the plant has dried and withered away it’s left with what we would call the cucumber, this is then peeled and dried to create a loofah.
loofah is often flat when bought online for soap making and can usually be purchased whole or in slices, both can be placed straight into a mold before pouring melted soap onto them.
Let’s Make Loofah Soap
Ingredients
- Natural Loofah
- Muffin trays
- Soap mold
- Soap colorants
- Shrinkwrap.
Method
You can make some wonderfully shaped soap by simply soaking the loofah in a little water to soften it and then placing it straight into your chosen mold and allowing it to dry out.
Once the loofah has dried melt your soap using this process, add color and scent, then pour over the loofah and leave to set.
I’ve used a silicone-type muffin tray for my round exfoliates below, but they can look really effective in star, heart, and square shapes (the heart shape looks pretty neat with a red colorant and makes a great valentines day gift).
Try to match the scent to the color of your soap, for example, green with apple or lime, red with strawberry or raspberry and yellow for grapefruit or melon.
Wrapping Your Loofah Soap
As with all freshly made soaps your fingerprints can easily ruin the look of them, so wrap them with kitchen wrap or even better for a totally professional look use shrink wrap.
To use shrink wrap cut slightly more wrap than you would normally use to wrap the soap in. Wrap the shrink wrap around the soap overlapping it slightly then secure with sticky tape. Using a hair dryer heat the shrink wrap and watch it mold its self around the soap like magic for a perfect finish.
Do you make your own loofah soap? What did you use? How did you pack them as a gift?
