Melt and pour soap with sweet orange and cinnamon oil adds a nice cozy feel to any room. Great for showers, weddings, hostesses, and helper gifts.
Who doesn't love the smell of oranges and cinnamon? They help give your home a nice cozy feel. That's why I decided to make a soap with this homey fragrance combination.
Since I'm using melt and pour soap, the process is simple. In fact, what you are really doing is taking the soap base, and dressing it up with fragrance, color, and other additives. A super fun creative project, that's easy enough for the kids to join in on.
It's much easier than making soap from scratch. That method is called cold process soap. It takes a lot of time and you need to use harsh chemicals such as lye to get a chemical reaction called saponification. However, melt and pour soap bases have already reached saponification so most of the work is already done.
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Supplies
(for 1 pound of soap)
Melt & Pour Soap Base
Sweet Orange Essential Oil
Cinnamon Essential Oil
Silicone Soap Mold
Orange Peel & Cinnamon Sticks
(decoration)
Safety Note: I use this soap as more of a decoration or sachet to set in a room. Cinnamon essential oil can be a skin irritant. Especially with those who have sensitive skin. Just make sure that you use a very small amount of oil if you are going to use it to wash your hands or body.
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Aren't these orange peels fun? All you need to do is take a garnishing tool
and peel the rind around the orange. They will curl up while drying, and you can let the oranges dry out too, to use in another project. Just make sure the orange has good airflow or it may start mold and rot.
Above is a photo of the soap base. You can see that this one is an opaque white soap. It's soft enough to cut with a knife and melt in the microwave. It's a vegetable base glycerin soap, however, you can also find honey soap or goat milk soap melt and pour bases.
How to Make Melt and Pour Soap
- Start by melting the base in a glass cup for 30 seconds in the microwave and stir.
- Repeat until melted. This batch took me about 4 times at 30 seconds or 2 minutes. However, everyone's microwave is different, so yours may take longer or less time.
- You can also create a double boiler, by placing this Pyrex glass in another pot of simmering water on the stove melting it that way.
- Once the soap is melted, let it cool for a minute or two before adding fragrance.
I used essential oils but you could use fragrance oils too. Here's a handy chart from my friend Jan Berry who makes amazing soaps, on how much to add: Essential Oil for Soap Making Chart
By the way, one pound of soap filled this mold with enough leftover to make a couple more bars.
Pour the melted soap into your mold.
Tip: If you see air bubbles after you pour the soap into the molds spray a little rubbing alcohol on the top and the bubbles should disappear.
Here, I tried to place some of the orange peels in the bottom of the mold first, however, they floated to the top. If you really want them to stay on the bottom, then I suggest you place your orange peel in the bottom and add just a little bit of soap to cover.
Wait for a while, maybe an hour, before adding any more soap. I didn't mind the look of the peels floating, so I let it go, and added some ground clove and cinnamon to the top.
Let the soap dry for 24 hours before removing the soap bars from the mold.
Decorating the Soap
Then you can have fun decorating them with pieces of cinnamon sticks and more of your dried orange peel. Tie some twine around them to look like beautiful little packages.
This melt and pour soap works with many other great scents, flowers, and herbs such as:
- lavender flowers
- rose petals
- other citrus fruit such as lime or lemon peels
- coffee grinds
- mint leaves
- calendula petals
- rosemary leaves
Make your own orange cinnamon soap and have fun creating these little fragrant beauties for your home, or as gifts for your family and friends.
More DIY Soap Ideas
Melt and Pour Soap - Rich Orange Cinnamon Scent
Equipment
- Garnishing tool
- Silicone Soap Mold
Materials
- Gylcerin Melt & Pour Soap Base
- Sweet Orange Essential Oil
- Orange Peel
- Cinnamon Sticks
Instructions
- Cut up chunks of the soap base and place them in a glass cup.
- Then melt it in the microwave in 30 second intervals.
- Repeat until melted.
- Once the soap is melted, let it cool for a minute or two before adding fragrance.
- Place some of the orange peels in the bottom of the mold.
- Add a little bit of melted soap base to cover the bottom of the mold.
- Wait an hour before adding any more soap.
- Add some ground clove and cinnamon to the top of the soap.
- Let the soap dry for 24 hours before removing them from the mold.
- Decorate with pieces of cinnamon sticks and more dried orange peel.
- Tie them with twine.
Jeannie Hurnblad
How much of the essential oils to I add for the 1 lb of soap base?
Thanks
Patti Estep
Jeannie, you need around 100 drops or 1 teaspoon total of essential oils for one pound of soap base. However, cinnamon essential oil is much stronger than orange. I believe I used something like 75 drops of orange to 25 drops of cinnamon. However, that combination is up to you. You can add some of the oils and stir and see if they smell good to you and go from there.
Heather
Did the orange peels in your soap end up molding or spoiling? Typically with melt and pour, you can not use fresh ingredients even when they are dried out. Melt and pour has too much water content, and the dried oranges, flowers, herbs, and such will soak in the water, causing them to rot. Be very careful what you put in the melt & pour soap base.
Patti Estep
Heather, thanks for your input. I had no trouble with mold. Probably because the orange peels were dried out and I only used the soap for decorative purposes.
Maida Alanis
Hi, love your recipe of orange-cinnamon soap. I just got on the mail the cinnamon essential oil but on the label it says cinnamon cassia, is it the same that you used? Thanks
Patti Estep
Maida, Yes, that's what I used for the soap. Cinnamon has such a strong smell you don't need much. Also, I made mine for decoration. We didn't even use them but they made the bathroom smell great.
Linda
I love your recipes and appreciate the work you do. Just wish the recipes had a prinatble format to make it easier to print out for use. Thanks for sharing!
Patti Estep
Hi Linda,
I just added a "Printer Friendly" button at the top of the post just under the title.
You should be able to click on it and print the entire article.
Let me know it you have any problems.
Mary
So nice of you to share your fantastic ideas (i.e recipes)
Mary
Patti Estep
Hi Mary,
It's my pleasure.:)
Mary
Thank you Patti
You are a star for sharing these amazing ideas.
Mary
Patti Estep
Hi Mary,
So glad you like them!
jusni omar
Hi, I made the soap as per ur recipe and it works well. I used goat milk and I peel off the orange skin and dried it on my patio on the hot sunny malaysian sunshine. Thanks so much for the recipe and the instruction was very clear.
Patti Estep
Great to hear. Thanks for letting me know Jusni.
Carole
The garnishes are perfect you need to open a shop. Take all these neat projects to the marketplace!!
Cinnamon and orange is a favorite here just so refreshing.
Patti Estep
Hi Carole,
I did have a shop with my sister about 15 years ago. Maybe an Etsy shop is in order?
Thanks as always for stopping by!
Donna D
For those of us who have never done this before can you explain further about adding the oils and spices (how much, when to add, etc.) ?
Patti Estep
Hi Donna,
Thank you for this comment. I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote this post. I'm going to update the post but for now, here's the information. I used essential oils but you could use fragrance oils. Wait a minute or two to let the melted soap cool before adding the oils. I used 3 teaspoons of the orange oil and only 25 drops of the cinnamon oil. This is because cinnamon oil is very strong. I found a handy guide that you can use from a fellow blogger who is an expert in soap making. Here's her link: https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/essential-oils-for-soapmaking-chart/ For the spices, I used them more for decorative purposes so it's just a sprinkle and whatever you feel looks good.
Hope that helps, and let me know if you have any other questions.