As a guy in my 30s, I’m not ashamed to admit: I love cooking and I like to smell good. But even with that said, I must confess: until recently, I was a total novice when it came to homemade soap and other DIY beauty products.

However, after doing a little digging and exploring the approaches of a few DIY masters, I began to realize that, for many people, making your own beauty products is a fun and (pardon the pun) clean way to release some creative energy, smell your best and really customize your own arsenal of personal care products.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered that making beauty products is not unlike cooking, and in many instances, it uses ingredients from your kitchen, like turmeric and ginger, for example.

I also realized that, for many who make their own soaps, lotions, lip balms, scrubs, bath fizzles, soaks and other DIY products, plastics and plastic containers can be helpful (and often, integral) during production and simultaneously offer ideal storage options for all your homemade beauty supplies^[1].

When making your own bars of soap, you must make a soap “log”or hard shell molding. From there, one must set the soap, let it harden and eventually, cut it into bars or other shapes of your choosing. To do this, soap makers often use square or rectangular wood vessels lined with a plastic or silicone molding that makes the soap easier to remove once it has hardened.

For alternative soaps bars, like “Sushi Soap,”showcased on the DIY blog, Soap Queen, cylindrical column moldings allow for circular, non-rectangular soap “bars”.

Sweet & Sassy Shop, an online retail store that sells hair bars (shampoo bars and conditioner bars) designed for girls and teens, packages their bath and body care soap bars in wide-mouth plastic containers that are white with colorful labels applied to smooth caps. 
     

View Parkway's wide-mouth, low profile containers and smooth white caps.

Thick Wall 70MM Jars (1 oz)

Thick Wall 70MM Jars ( 2 oz)

If you’re looking to make a more viscous cleanser or exfoliant, like a lip balm, moldings are less of a necessity, but plastic can still play a important role, as a preferred means of storage.

For lip balms and other similar beauty products, small plastic jars (typically 1/8 oz - 1/2 oz) act as ideal containers, allowing easy access and convenient reuse.

Other, newer DIY home products, like bath fizzes and bath “bombs”—mixtures of soap, baking soda and citric acid that are designed to fizzle, dissolve and emit various alluring aromas when they are placed in the bath —make up some of the more fun and less conventional DIY soap endeavors out there today.

To make “fizzes”,^[2] one must use ingredients that are more volatile than those used to make other soaps and lotions. As a result, one should wear gloves^[3] and use moldings that are a little thicker^[4]. Bath fizzes react instantly with water and are best stored in a dry, protected container, like a plastic jar with a lid.

Another, newer and slightly less traditional form of homemade soap is the facial scrub. Typically, scrubs have a liquid soap base that provides a gentle, therapeutic lather that leaves your face feeling clean and refreshed.

Facial scrubs can take less than 20 minutes to make; they do not require any moldings and can simply be stored in a plastic jar.

So, as it turns out, you don’t have to be a DIY whiz to make your favorite beauty supplies within the comfort of your own home. All you need is a little creativity, a few household ingredients and a couple plastic jars, and you can be well on your way to making a collection of your own original soaps, balms and scrubs.

^[1] https://www.soapqueen.com/category/bath-and-body-tutorials/cold-process-soap/

^[2] https://sweetandsassyshop.com/

^[3] https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/cherry-blossom-bath-bomb-diy/

^[4] https://www.brambleberry.com/6-Cavity-Silicone-Square-Mold-P6891.aspx