Soap is simply a salt of a fatty acid used for various lubricating and cleansing products. In our homes, we use soaps for cleaning, washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In the industry, soaps are used as precursors to catalysts, thickeners, and components of some lubricants.
On the other hand, a wax melt is a shaped piece of wax (often shaped like cubes) that releases a pleasant-smelling substance (fragrance) when heated using a particular device known as a wax melter or warmer. Wax melts make the house, room, or space smell nicer—pretty much like scented candles without the smoke, soot, and flame.
From their definitions, it’s easy to see that wax melts are totally different from soaps. While one is used for cleaning and other industrial purposes, the other is used to make a room smell nicer.
Since wax melts and soaps do not serve the same purpose, the question becomes, “is there any connection between wax melts and soaps?”, “can wax melts be made into soaps?”
In today’s guide, we’ll be looking at how to make soaps from wax melts, or in other words, how wax melts become soaps.
Can you make soaps from wax melts?
Yes, it’s possible to make soaps from wax melts. You may or may not already know this, but wax melts are made from wax, and while soaps can be made from a host of other things, they can be made from wax as well.
So this means that there is a connection between wax melts and soaps—the connection is wax. Hence, if wax can be used to make wax melts, it can be converted to soaps.
How to make soaps from wax melts
Since you are reading this article, I’ll be assuming you already know how to make wax melts, but you don’t know what to do with your used or unused wax melts, and you are considering soap making.
In this section, I’ll teach you how to make a simple honey bee soap with the melt and pour technique. The melt and pour technique was chosen because it’s easy for anyone (both beginners and experts) to follow.
Soap ingredients
- Opaque/Clear soap base
- Soy wax melts, or beeswax wax melts—it’s usually just soy wax or beeswax when making wax soaps, but we’ll be making an exception here since we want to convert our wax melts to soap
- Fragrance oils
- Pigment colours (for opaque base) or water-based colours (for clear base)
- Soap mould
Procedure
Start by melting your soap base, and your soy wax or beeswax melts using a double boiler, a microwave for small quantities, or a slow cooker. It’s better to chop your soap base into smaller pieces before melting it together with your wax melts. Do not overheat the soap base; keep the temperature below 70°C.
Once both the wax melt and soap base have melted and are properly mixed, the next thing you’ll have to do is add your fragrance. Suppose you don’t have a ratio already. In that case, you can use 15ml of fragrances for every 1kg of the soap base—too much negatively affects the transparency of the soap bar.
After adding your fragrance, next comes colouring. Make sure to use water-based colours for a clear soap base and pigment colours for an opaque soap base. For every 1kg soap base, you can use 10ml of the appropriate colourant. Avoid using too much colour as it can cause the lather produced from the soap to look unappealing. After adding your fragrance and appropriate colourant to the mixture, stir everything thoroughly to ensure that they are evenly mixed.
Once you are done mixing and have a nice blend, you can carefully pour your mixture into your soap moulds and allow the soap to set. Once the soap is set, you can easily pop it out from the moulds.
There you go! That’s how to make soap using wax melts easily.
