“Handmade with Love”...literally! There's no better way to express your love than putting your heart and soul into hand-making the perfect gift. These super cute heart-embedded soaps are a wonderful way to express your love this Valentine’s Day. Made using melt & pour base and using our Love Potion fragrance oil and little red heart embeds, these make thoughtful hand-made gifts for those you love.

If you’ve made soaps with melt and pour base, our intermediate tutorial will take simple soap bars to the next level, sharing step by step how to use an embed in your soap and how to create an asymmetrical two-colour effect too. Using Stephenson's melt and pour soap base and scented with our ever-popular Love Potion fragrance oil, these lovely handmade Valentine's Day soaps will not only cleanse skin, leaving it feeling silky smooth, but will also leave it beautifully scented.

Save time searching for those perfect gifts! Our tutorial uses a loaf mould which means that one loaf will make multiple gifts for those you love and our step by step tutorial will make it easy for you to follow along. Check out our video above or read on for a step by step written tutorial with pictures.

If you’re brand new to making melt and pour soaps, we’d recommend checking out our Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Melt & Pour Soap and once you’re comfortable with the process, jump back to this tutorial to see how easy it is to make your soaps to the next level with these more advanced techniques.

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Makes: 9 x 130g bars of soap from a 1200g mould

Ingredients

• 1200g WSLS Free Melt & Pour Base
• 36g Love Potion Fragrance Oil
• 9g Zenicolor Solo Passion

Equipment

• Microwave
• Set of kitchen weighing scales
• 1 x large heat proof jug
• 1 x medium heat proof jug
• 1 x small glass or plastic jug suitable for fragrance oil
• 1 x small pot for the colour
• Thermometer
• Spatula
• Sharp kitchen knife for cutting the soap base
• A scraper tool or small sharp kitchen knife
• Spray bottle containing isopropyl alcohol
• Loaf mould (which holds a minimum of 1200g of soap)
• Standard Heart embed mould
• A couple of small bulldog clips (optional)

Step 1 - Measure out your ingredients

Measure out 900g of soap base, cut into equal cubes and place into the large heatproof jug. Weigh out 300g of soap base, cut into equal cubes and place into the medium heat proof jug. Weigh out 36g of love potion fragrance oil and 9g of Zenicolor Passion into separate pots.

Step 2 - Prepare the soap embed

Take the 300g jug of soap base and melt on short 30 second bursts in the microwave until it has reached approximately 65°C.

Add the 9g of Zenicolor Passion colourant to the melted soap base.

Stir until fully combined. Spritz will isopropyl alcohol to disperse and bubbles.

Add 9g of the Love Potion fragrance oil and stir until fully combined.

Spritz with alcohol to disperse any bubbles that may have formed.

Step 3 - Prepare your moulds

Prop up the length of your loaf mould with a plate or something similar, so it is sat at an angle.

Have your heart embed mould readily placed inside a pint glass, vase or anything that will help your mould stand up.

Step 4 - Pour your coloured soap

Pour your scented, coloured soap into your heart embed mould. We are going to fill the mould up to 1cm from the top.

Carefully pour the rest of the soap into the tilted loaf mould.

Spritz the top of the heart mould and the soap in the loaf mould with isopropyl alcohol to disperse any bubbles that may have formed.

Leave to cool for 1-2 hours.

Step 5 - Unmould your heart embed

Carefully unmould your heart embed.

Place your long heart embed along the top of your loaf mould and cut to size.

You will need a snug fit, length to length of the mould (but not too tight). Keep the piece that is cut off as we will use that at the end.

Now take your scraper tool (or small knife) and trim off any excess around the heart embed.

Step 6 - Melt the rest of the soap base

Take the large jug of 900g of soap base and gently heat on short 30-60 second bursts in the microwave until the soap base reaches between 65-70°C.

Spritz with isopropyl alcohol to disperse any bubbles that may have formed.

Step 7 - Add the fragrance oil

Add the remaining fragrance oil to the melted soap base. Stir to fully combine. Again spritz with isopropyl alcohol to disperse any air bubbles.

Let it cool to around 60°C as we don’t want the heated soap to melt the set soap.

Step 8 - Prepare to pour

Spritz the red set soap that is already in the loaf mould with isopropyl alcohol. You will need to make sure the soap is thoroughly covered with the alcohol. Rub the alcohol into the set soap with your hands to help activate the glycerine and help it stick to the next layer.

With your loaf mould sat flat on the work surface, take your white melted soap base and pour to about 5mm over the top of the red set soap.

Spritz with alcohol to disperse any air bubbles

Now wait until there is a solid skin formed on top of the soap.

Step 9 - Place the heart embed

Make sure your melted soap in the jug is still at about 60°C. You may need to gently heat it back up to temperature in short bursts in the microwave.

Liberally spray the top of the soap in the loaf mould as well as heart embed itself with isopropyl alcohol. Again, rubbing the soap will help make sure the soap is thoroughly covered.

Place the heart embed in the loaf mould. It doesn’t matter which way you place the heart but to achieve the look in the picture you will need to place the embed so that the top bumps of the heart are pointing in the same direction as the top of the tilted red layer.

Spray one last time with isopropyl alcohol for good measure!

Now gently pour the remaining soap in the loaf mould. The heart should stay in play while pouring (the reason for the snug fit)

Spritz with alcohol to disperse any air bubbles.

Step 10 - Decorate the top

This last step is optional, but we feel it just finishes the soap off nicely!

Take that small piece of red heart soap that we saved from step 5b and cut into small pieces.

Gently heat up to melt. You will need to do this is 5 second bursts as this small amount will melt very very quickly. Drip or pour to make a pattern on top of the loaf.

If you pour the topping before the white soap has set, this will leave a red swirl pattern within the loaf itself. If you would prefer to have the topping sat on top of your soap loaf then wait a short while for the white soap to set a little before adding the melted red topping.

Step 11 - Leave to cool

Leave to cool for 4-6 hours to allow the loaf to fully cool and harden.

Once cooled. Unmould and slice.

Pro tip: As we are slicing layers of soap, turn the loaf to the side and slice as this can sometimes prevent the loaf from splitting.

Your soap slices are now ready to use or wrap up immediately to give as gifts.

Ready to try some other melt and pour soap DIYs? Check out all our M&P tutorials here to find your next project!

Please note: Our tutorial is designed for personal use only. You will need to follow all legal responsibilities before selling any products that come into contact with skin.

See our Melt & Pour Soap Assessment to purchase an assessment and our blog post on Assessments & CPSR - How to Sell Bath & Beauty Products in the UK for more information.