Making Felted Bars of Soap

Besides function, the greatness of having a washcloth and soap in one, or the sheer joy seeing a cute little decorated bar of soap might bring every time you wash your hands, I have felted my soap to save it. Save it you might ask? From what? My beasties. Every single one of them have turned out to be soap destroyers at a young age. They are good for the most part in taking care of their things and do not seek to destruct on a usual basis. But soap? When you are two years old, in our home, it stands no chance. Little hands soak it and squeeze it and pull it until it is nothing but a pile of bits. This irks me immensely! It clogs the drain. It just drives me nuts collecting little scraps to lather with too. I’ve done the soap in a nylon thing, crocheted a cute little bag. It’s helped but each still had annoying issues.

So I have turned to this in attempt to not only beautify the sink side, but also for sanity. And it’s fun to make! 🙂

You will need,

-wool roving or batt

-a bar of soap

-nylon stocking

-a dish of boiling water

-bubble wrap and tape to secure it to your work surface, I used some duct tape.

-rubber gloves if you wish

-if you happen to have a washboard or some other corrugated something to use in place of bubble wrap, that may even be better!

First step is to set up. You’ll want to tape your bubble wrap to your work surface. Put on a kettle of water and have a dish for the boiling water ready.

The fun part now is to wrap your soap. I have put together a very simple batt, mostly white Finn sheep wool with a few flecks of colour. This is where you can insert your imagination and the possibilities go on and on. I am excited for the next time I get a chance to do this, I plan on bright colours and neat designs.

Take your wool and wrap your soap! You will want to be sure your soap is completely covered. Also that it is on evenly and not thin in one place, bulky in another. Be sure your edges are covered nicely. It may felt better if wrapped across the bar and then perpendicularly.

Once you are satisfied with your wrapping, place bar into the toe of the nylon sock.

Pour your boiling water into your dish, and carefully dip the bar of soap a few times, jostle it a bit then remove it from the water. Shake it off a tad, then start rubbing it on your bubble wrap. Continue to do so, all sides, for about five to ten minutes in total. I dipped the soap back into the hot water a few times during the process.

After all that time felting, you can remove your bar from the nylon. Sometimes it will stick a bit but just pull and it will let go of the nylon no problem.

Take a clean towel and dry off your felted bar. If it looks like it needs some extra felting anywhere, just continue to rub on the bubble wrap. Your wool should be tight on the bar, it should not be able to be pinched up or slide around at all. To give it an extra bit of security, you can give it a few thwacks, wrapped in the towel on a counter top or table. You want to take care that it hits the surface flat sided so you don’t make any dents in your bar.

When you finished with the felting, dry the bar off by squeezing gently in a towel and set them in the sun to dry, or on a drying rack.

Ta-da!

Beautiful, functional bars of soap!