Handmade Soap

Handmade Soap

Every bar of handmade soap at Naked Blends starts as a small batch, made by hand. I mix, pour, cut, and cure each batch myself, so the bar you unwrap is one I made, checked, and wrapped — never mass-produced, and never shipped in from a warehouse.

Whether you are shopping for your own bathroom or stocking up for the whole household, a good bar should do three things: get you clean, rinse away without leaving your skin feeling tight, and smell like something you look forward to using. The guide below will help you pick the right bars for how you plan to use them.

Scented Bars for Everyday Washing

My scented bars are the ones most people start with. Each fragrance is made to be noticeable while you wash without following you around all day. Seasonal favorites like Sugared Pumpkin and Pumpkin Maple share the shelf with year-round scents like Almond Whisper, a soft, creamy blend customers reorder again and again.

Unscented and Gentle Bars

If fragrance is not for you, or your skin lets you know about it, start with my unscented and gentle bars. These keep it simple: no added fragrance, just a mild soap bar for everyday washing. They are also a good pick if you wear perfume or cologne and do not want scents competing.

Exfoliating Bars

Exfoliating bars have a bit of texture worked right into the bar, to help scrub away rough, dry skin on hands, feet, elbows, and knees. Brown Sugar is my most gentle exfoliating soap. My Exfoliating Coffee is the longtime favorite here, and my Working Bar is the bar gardeners, mechanics, and anyone with hardworking hands tend to reach for.

Shave Soap

My shave soaps are made to be whipped into a thick lather with a shaving brush. The lather cushions your skin so the razor glides instead of dragging. Choose the puck in a ramekin for your counter, or a refill puck, or one of my smaller shave bars, made to fit inside a mug. One difference worth knowing about my shave soaps: they are hot process instead of cold process. I find it makes a better shave soap, and my customers deserve the best!

New: Soap Infused Sponges

My soap infused sponges are exactly what the name says: a soft sponge already loaded with my soap, so it lathers up the moment it gets wet. Keep one by the sink or in the shower for everyday washing. Each soap infused sponge holds 6 oz of my handcrafted cold process soap, and has a built-in rope so it’s easy to grip and easy to hang up to dry. I make them in several scents, plus unscented, and a range of colors.

See a Soap-Infused Sponge in Action

It looks like an ordinary sponge, but this one carries its own soap, about six ounces of it. In this short video I take one straight off my curing rack and run it under water, and you can watch the suds build as I roll it between my hands. At the end I rinse it, drain it, and show you how it looks afterward: ready to hang up by its rope and dry for the next shower.

Soap for Kids

Kids wash more willingly when the soap is fun. Dinosaur bars and cute Halloween coffins and bats turn handwashing into part of playtime, and the bars are shaped for smaller hands to hold onto.

How My Handmade Soap Is Made

Every batch begins in my soap studio, where I weigh, mix, and pour the oils into molds by hand. My bars are cold process soap: once a batch has set, I cut it into bars and set the bars on racks to cure. Curing takes patience. The bars rest for several weeks while they harden. It is what makes a finished bar last longer in the dish than a soft, fresh one. After curing, I wrap and label each bar, ready for your sink or shower.

Almond Whisper handmade soap in three stages: swirled soap in the mold, cut bars curing on a wire rack, and the finished bar with its Naked Blends label

Make Your Bar Last Longer

A handmade bar lasts longest when it can dry out between uses. Rest it on a dish that drains instead of a flat tray or the edge of the tub or sink, and keep it out of the shower’s direct spray. My wooden soap dish lifts the bar up out of standing water, and you will find it in the Soap Accessories section below, along with soap saver bags that you can hang to dry.

Soap Accessories

The right accessories help your bars last longer and your sink stay tidier: draining soap dishes and soap-saver bags, all made to work with my bars.

Buying Handmade Soap as a Gift?

Many of my bars also come in bundles and ready-to-give gift boxes. If you are shopping for a birthday, a thank-you, or a hostess gift, start with my gift sets and add a bar or two of your own favorites.

Good Questions About My Handmade Soap Bars

How are your handmade soap bars made?

I make my soap bars by the cold process method, in small batches in my Reidsville studio, with oils like olive, coconut, and castor. My shave soaps are the one exception: I make those by hot process, because I find it gives a better shave soap.

Do handmade soap bars lather as well as store-bought soap?

Yes. Mine build a rich, creamy lather, especially with a little help: work the bar between wet hands, or use a washcloth, a loofah, or one of my sisal soap bags for the most bubbles. You can find product demonstration videos on my YouTube channel.

How big is one of your handmade soap bars?

Most weigh around 4 to 5 ounces. Every product page states the net weight, as does every label.

My skin is sensitive. Which bar should I start with?

I can’t promise any bar is right for every skin, but if fragrance is your concern, start with my unscented and gentle bars. The oatmeal honey bar is a longtime customer favorite.

Are all your scents available all year?

Not all of them. Alongside my regular handmade soap bars, I make seasonal bars in small runs, like my Halloween soaps, and when a season ends, those scents leave with it. If you fall for a seasonal bar, it is worth grabbing an extra.

Do you make a truly unscented bar?

Yes. My unscented bars have no fragrance added at all, so all you get is the clean smell of the soap itself. My oatmeal honey bars are unscented too, and they are some of my best sellers.

What makes a bar exfoliating?

The scrub built into it. My Exfoliating Coffee Soap gets its grit from coffee, and bars like my Himalayan Salt Soap have their texture from the salt. My Brown Sugar Soap gets its grit from the brown sugar, but it is a more gentle exfoliator. The Working Bar soap uses pumice, coffee, and charcoal for effective exfoliation.

How long do handmade soap bars keep before I use them?

They are best within about a year, and stored somewhere cool, dry, and dark, they keep well for one to three years. I have test bars that are over 5 years old and are still great. If a bar ever develops orange spots or smells off, it has turned, and that is the sign to let it go.

What makes a soap a kids’ soap?

The fun! My kids’ soaps are handmade soap bars in shapes like dinosaurs, made to make hand-washing and bath time something kids actually look forward to. My Halloween Midnight Haunt soaps live in that section too, in coffin and bat shapes for the season.

My kids’ soaps are fragrance free and only natural colorants are used, such as charcoal, cocoa powder, rose clay, indigo powder, etc.

How do I make my bar last longer once I am using it?

Keep it dry between uses. Rest your bar on a draining dish so it can dry out instead of sitting in water (my wooden dishes are made for exactly this), and it will last noticeably longer. A soap bag helps too: it builds lather and lets you use up every last sliver, plus you can hang it to dry.

Can I buy handmade soap bars as a gift?

Absolutely! All of my products would make great gifts, but if you’re looking for something special, my gift sets and bundles pair bars with dishes and bags, and two of my boxed sets, Smoked Cedar and Oud and Blushing Blossom, come fully wrapped with a bow and gift tag. You will find them in the gift section above and on my gifts page.

How do I use a shave soap?

Wet your shave brush, swirl and brush it over the puck to build a lather, and apply the lather to your skin before shaving.

How much soap is in a soap infused sponge?

Six ounces of my cold-process soap is infused right into each sponge, so it lathers like a bar and a sponge in one.

How do I use a soap infused sponge?

Run it under water, and roll it in your hands, and the soap inside wakes up into a rich lather. There is a short video in the sponges section above showing the whole thing. When you are done, rinse it, drain it, and hang it by its built-in rope to dry.

Are your soaps vegan?

Many of my soaps are vegan. It’s important to look at the soap ingredients on each product listing.