Make Sea Foam Melt and Pour Soaps [How to]

There are so many amazing things you can do with melt and pour soap. It’s the easiest and safest way to make soaps at home. There’s no special expertise required, and you don’t have to handle any dangerous chemicals. That means you can do DIYs like this with all of the fun and none of the fuss! All you need is a tub of melt and pour, and a few extra ingredients that you’ll be able to use again and again.

There are many different types of melt and pour soap base available, so you’ve got plenty of options. For this recipe, we’re actually using two different bases – a clear and a white. When swirled together they create a beautiful effect that looks just like the sea!

If you’re a beginner to melt and pour, don’t worry! These soaps look incredible but they’re actually made by using super basic techniques. You’ll be amazed at how simple it is to create beautiful soaps like these. Even if it’s your first time working with melt and pour, you can follow this recipe.

Sea Melt and Pour Recipe

What you need to make these melt and pour soaps

Getting prepared and mixing your soaps

Make sure you prepare everything you need beforehand. Clear your surface and lay out all of your equipment and ingredients. Once you’ve melted your soap you need to work quickly to avoid it setting again! We suggest allowing up to an hour to complete this DIY, giving you plenty of time to make sure layers have completely set.

1. Place one of your jugs on the scales, and open your tub of Clear Melt and Pour. Remove the block of soap and put it onto a safe cutting surface. (The lid of the tub will do, just make sure not to cut through the plastic!) Using a sharp knife, begin cutting the soap into cubes. We want 400g of this soap, so you’ll want to cut up just under half of a 1kg tub. Weigh out the cubes into your jug – don’t worry about being too precise, a few grams over won’t make a difference. Do the same thing with your white soap, weighing out just 200g.

2. Next, you need to melt your clear soap. We suggest using a microwave for this, as it’s the quickest and easiest method. If you don’t have access to one however, you can float your jug of soap in a pan of simmering water until it melts. Microwave your soap in 30-second bursts, stirring it every couple of times. Keep going until it’s totally liquid and you have no lumps.
3. Weigh out 8g of Sea Breeze Fragrance Oil and stir it into your soap, along with some blue soap colouring. We found that 2 drops of our colourant were enough to provide a really vibrant blue. Stir the mixture until the colour is even and the fragrance oil is mixed in.

4. Once your blue soap is ready, put your white soap in the microwave and melt it in 30-second bursts, as before. Keep stirring your blue soap while you do this, to prevent it from setting on top.

Pouring your soaps

5. Prepare your soap mould on a flat surface. Spray each cavity with isopropyl alcohol – this will help to create a smooth base for your soap. Pour a thin layer of blue soap into each cavity – we’ll be repeating this process 3 times so try to use around a third of your blue soap.

6. Leave your blue soap to cool in the mould for around a minute, just long enough for it to cool, but not long enough to set. This waiting period will stop the two soap from blending together, so you end up with a more defined sea foam effect.
7. Make sure your white soap is still hot and liquid (if it’s started to cool, pop it back in the microwave for 10 seconds) then pour a small amount into each blue soap. Watch as it flows out and creates beautiful patterns. Experiment with different ways of pouring the white soap – all into the middle, or around in a swirling pattern – to see what you like best. Work quickly at this stage as the soaps will continue to set while you work – you don’t want to reach your last soap and find out it has already set.

8. Spray the tops of your soap with isopropyl alcohol to get rid of any bubbles, then leave your soaps alone for a few minutes to set enough to pour the next layer on top.
9. Your jugs of melt and pour will have cooled at this stage – reheat them in short bursts in the microwave until hot and liquid again. Spray the top of each soap with more alcohol – this will help the soap to adhere to the layer underneath. Repeat the pouring process two more times. When you are done you should have used all your blue soap, but have some white soap remaining.

Final touches

Now comes the fun final touch – creating ‘sea foam’ on top of your soaps. You can leave them as they are if you like the watery look, but we think this small extra step really makes these soaps look extra special.

10. Once the soaps are set on top (make sure they are solid enough to touch) re-melt your remaining white soap. If you didn’t have any leftover, just cut up some more, 2-3- cubes will be enough.
11. Working one soap at a time, spray the top with isopropyl alcohol, then pour on a little swirl of white soap. Don’t pour a full layer, just enough to make a pattern (check our picture below for reference).
12. Using the stirring stick from your white melt and pour, start pushing the soap around, creating swirls and patterns. The soap will start to set as you do this, so make sure you swirl all over. As it sets it will hold the pattern you push it into, creating the lovely sea foam effect.

13. You don’t need to spray this layer with alcohol, as the uneven, bubbly appearance will just add to the effect we want to create. Continue along your soaps, adding foam to each one individually. You may have to heat your melt and pour for 10 seconds between each soap, as the small amount in your jug will turn solid quickly.

14. Leave your soaps in a safe place for 48 hours to harden completely. Then they’re ready to pop in your soap dish, or give to your family and friends as a beautiful handmade gift!

Ideas for variations on our recipe

This recipe is just the beginning. If you want to go from this and start creating your own marvellous melt and pour soaps, go ahead! As you get more experienced, you’ll be able to look at recipes like this one and come up with ways to adapt or change them to better suit you. We’ll share a few of our ideas for ways you could do this recipe differently:

Pouring the soap in a single layer. We did initially try this method – filling the mould up with the blue soap then pouring in the white soap. It worked, but the watery effect was less defined as the soap took longer to set. Also, the centre of the soap was just solid white. We decided to split this step up and do it in multiple layers, as it guaranteed the watery effect ran throughout the soap. But if you want to pour in a single layer to save time, you can.

Pour a solid blue ‘water’ soap, then top with ‘sea foam’. Similarly to the last idea, you may want to simply pour a solid blue soap bar, then top it with the white soap to create the sea foam effect. While the sea foam will eventually disappear as you use the soap, this can still produce a lovely effect. It’s also a quicker and simpler process, especially for beginners. Just bear in mind your soap bar will take longer to set if pouring a full mould all at once. If you want to try this method, use 550g of clear melt and pour with 8g of Sea Breeze fragrance oil and 2-3 drops of blue colourant. Top with 30-50g of white melt and pour.

Just using one soap base. If you don’t want to invest in two soap bases for your first recipe, you can try creating a watery effect with just clear soap – half dyed blue, half left clear. We haven’t tried this method ourselves, so can’t say for certain how it would look. There would likely be more bleed between the colours, since they are the same type of soap. The watery effect would be less defined, but could still look good. If you decide to try this, we would suggest pouring both colours into the mould at the same time, rather than pouring one colour into the other. Create a liquid appearance on the surface using the technique for sea foam.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this recipe, and you have fun recreating it yourself. It really is a great beginner’s project – deceptively simple but produces gorgeous, professional-looking results. You’re sure to be hooked on soap making in no time! We’d love to see your creations. Share them with us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.