We make some pretty incredible things in the Oats Everyday kitchen (looking at you, Bacon and Cheddar Oatmeal), but our non-food creations have been pretty exciting, too! We recently had a day of crafting in the kitchen and made some awesome gifts for the upcoming holiday season.
First up was a double-batch of soothing oatmeal soap. We had always wanted to try soap making, but the chemicals involved made us skeptical. Luckily, we discovered melt-and-pour glycerine soap bases online – perfect for soap-making novices like us. We decided to add oats to our soap because they are naturally moisturizing and soothing, and have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Oats also contain saponins, a phytochemical that acts as a natural detergent, and the oat flakes suspended throughout our soap act as a gentle exfoliant.
Following the instructions on the package, the soap base melted as easily as chocolate and, after adding our oats, we simply poured the mixture into cute molds and let it cure. This wasn’t too far out of our comfort zone as it was a lot like cooking.
Once we had set our soap aside to harden, we decided to make some oatmeal shower bags. The bags are self-lathering and used in place of a shower puff or loofah. The lather is wonderfully creamy from the oats, and the bag itself gives the skin a light scrubbing. When you’re done with a bag, it can be emptied out, rinsed and dried, then refilled.
Rather than sewing our shower bags, we used ready-made organza bags from the party favor section of the dollar store. For the filling, we mixed up two cups of rolled oats with 1/2 cup of grated bar soap and about a dozen drops of essential oil. (You can omit the essential oil if your soap is scented, or if you prefer an unscented shower bag.) We put about 1/4 cup of the mixture into each bag and tied the ribbon at the top in a double knot. Because we are giving these as gifts, we sealed each one in a little plastic bag to keep them fresh.
After just a couple hours, we had a table full of wonderfully scented gifts and stocking stuffers, ready for gifting, plus a few extra bars of soap to keep by the sink at Oats Everyday HQ.