Hi Guys! 
So, I finally made my first handmade soap! 
I was thinking for a long time what to make for Christmas for my friends and family and while watching youtube I´ve found some soap recipes and got quite crazy about soap making for a while. It´s like baking (bit more dangerous) and I love baking a lot! 
I started to check webpages with soap techniques, recipes, supplies and I´ve finally decided how I´ll do my first batch. 

If you are also thinking about your own soap making, you should try it. It´s a lot of fun and waiting for the result is exciting :D 
If you don´t know where to start I have for you some perfect pages and also the recipe and technique, which I´ve used. You´ll find all the instructions under the picture. 

First I wanted to try this easy beginner recipe http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/cold-process-soap/back-to-basics-simple-gentle-cold-process-soap/ but I wanted my soap to be white and I couldn´t get any palm oil in stores, where I live (later I realized, it´s also very unecological to use it). I had to do some new research and in the end I decided to make lard soap, which is one of traditional soap recipes. 
This page http://www.humblebeeandme.com/why-i-use-lard-or-tallow-in-my-soap-and-why-you-should-too/ definitely convinced me, that lard is the right thing to use. 

I really wanted to start with something easy so I just used coconut oil, lard, lye and distilled water. Here you can find 5 different lard soap recipes http://www.skinandsoulcompany.com/lard_soap_recipe.html
I´ve used the first one, but to make it little bit interesting I added 20 drops of rose essential oil and little bit of crushed cinnamon for christmas feeling :) You can see also nice layer of dried cornflowers (these you can buy on ebay or in some pharmacies), which I´ve just spread on the top after pouring into molds.
Here are the instructions for cold process soap http://www.skinandsoulcompany.com/cold_process_soap_making.html which I´ve followed. 
You really have to follow them very strictly, that´s a big difference between baking and soap making, if you don´t do the steps right, there is a big chance that you will ruin your work. 
  
Even my soap didn´t turn out perfectly, it´s little bit crumbly. Thanks to google, there is answer almost for every question. I think I had to pour my soap mixture too liquid into the mold, it should look more like pudding than creamy sauce :) (I mixed it by hand and I was already bit tired :D I had to change for mixer anyway) It will take more time to cure, but it should be usable.
Anyway, I´ve already ordered dried rose petals from ebay and I´ll try again. 

What I also made is body scrub, it just lookes yummy on soap queen, but again I wanted to do it very simple and use all the ingredients I already had at home.
Here is what I´ve used:
- 100g coconut oil  
- 150g sea salt (medium grain, I use this in kitchen)  
- 10 drops of rose essential oil 
- little bit of crushed cinnamon 
- cornflowers
All you have to do is just to melt the coconut oil, mix everything together and pour into jar, while it´s still liquid. If you want to give this as a present, you don´t need a lot of time, it takes just few minutes, so you can prepare it few days before giving away.

I hope you enjoy my post, have fun by your own soap/scrub making and if you have some questions leave a comment.

p.s.: this is what I was listening all the time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKAxikZmY-0 happy to make Christmas :D  
Nice weekend to everyone!