Refresh and vitalize your skin with a gorgeous DIY exfoliating soap with Himalayan salt! Suitable for your hands and body, the salt crystals provide gentle exfoliation and cleansing, while the added vitamin E oil nourishes and moisturizes the skin. These handcrafted soap bars are made with a melt-and-pour soap base so you can have them ready in no time.

In honor of spring, I scented the soap with a beautiful magnolia fragrance and added a pretty floral soap embed, making the exfoliating bars great gifts for Mother’s Day, spring birthdays or beauty lovers all year round. You can, of course, use any other fragrance or essential oils of your choice. Read on to learn how to create this homemade exfoliating soap and how to make the cute flower embed!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, we will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Learn more

Materials for DIY exfoliating soap

I recently shared sugar soap scrub bars made with sugar, soap and coconut oil that are gently exfoliating (definitely give them a try ). This DIY melt and pour exfoliating bars have stronger peeling effect. Here’s what you need to make these exfoliating soap bars at home:

Melt and pour soap base

The floral embed is made with a white, opaque melt and pour soap base. I used a goat’s milk soap base as this what I already had at hand. This soap base has a creamy lather and milky white hue, which is perfect for adding any color or fragrance.

You can also use shea butter, Castile,  or cocoa soap base instead. Just take into account when choosing a fragrance that cocoa soap base has a distinct chocolate smell. Each soap base behaves a little differently, so it’s a good idea to check the manufacturer’s recommendations.

The base of this soap is created with clear melt and pour soap. I used a clear soap base to create a contrast to the flower and make the salt crystals visible. When pouring the soap, work in layers, so you have salt throughout the soap and not just one layer at the bottom.

Alternatively,  chose a clear suspension soap base, which is formulated for suspending additives evenly throughout your soap.

Himalayan salt & vitamin E oil

I admit that I picked Himalayan salt mostly because I thought that its distinctive pink hue would compliment the pink shades of the soap beautifully. Aside from aesthetic considerations, Himalayan salt is said to have many benefits.

Himalayan salt is unrefined and shares a higher content of trace minerals than refined table salt. Its coarse crystals are an excellent exfoliant and will give a good peel and cleanse the skin. You can also swap it for dead sea salt or Epsom salt, whatever you have available or prefer.

For added skin care, I enriched the soap with vitamin E oil. Vitamin E oil is a versatile and useful ingredient for homemade skin care products and aids anti-ageing treatments. It acts as a natural antioxidant neutralizing free radicals while helping to moisturize and soften the skin.

Fragrance & colour

It’s currently spring in London, which means the city’s roads are lined with blossom-studded magnolia trees. I tried to capture the beauty of the magnolia flowers in this soap and therefore chose a lovely magnolia fragrance oil to scent my exfoliating soap bars.

Magnolia absolute essential oils exist, but these are usually outrageously expensive or smell disappointing. You can add essential oils at a 2% concentration. At the moment, I’m loving this Soothe and Honeybell  essential oil blends from Plant Therapy (not sponsored, PT just has lovely products.) Another fun idea is to fragrance the flower embed and the exfoliating part with two different scents.

I tinted my DYI exfoliating soap pink with a shade from this set of liquid soap colours. This colorant is very potent so use only tiny amounts. The colors are suitable for many homemade bath projects so you can repurpose them for other beauty DIYs. If preferred, use micas or color blocks instead.

Flower mould

I chose a mould with a simple 5-petal flower, which I pretend to be a magnolia. The petals are relatively large, which makes it easy to cut away the excess soap when creating the flower embed.

I found this set of 3 silicone moulds with 3 different flower designs on Amazon. Working with all 3 moulds enabled me to pour the soaps in one go instead after one after another.

I will use the other flower designs in future projects. Shapes with small, intricate petals won’t work as well for this technique. But don’t fret if you have a dahlia or rose mould and use it instead.

Gift the DIY magnolia soap

The pretty and feminine design makes this soap the perfect little homemade spring gift, DIY Mother’s Day gift, birthday present and Easter basket stuffer. It’s an excellent present for hostesses, housewarming, and of course to treat yourself! I put the magnolia soap bars into cellophane gift bags, added one of our printable gift tags and tied the whole thing with a piece of twine. Super adorbs, don’t you think?

If you look closely, you can see specks of Himalayan salt shining through the clear soap base. The salt not only turns this DIY soap bar into a homemade exfoliating soap but also adds visual appeal.

I used a pairing knife to remove the excess soap between the flower petals. This step is optional but will give the embeds a more refined look.