DIY Wool Felted Soap

Making your own DIY Wool Felted Soap is incredibly easy and can be a fun activity for kids and adults.

What is Felted Soap?

Felted soap has layers of wool that have been massaged/felted to the point that it completely encases the bar. Wool has little scales on the fibers that bind together when they are massaged/felted.

Felting is nothing new. In fact, there is archeological evidence that felting wool has been taking place since 3100 BCE!

What are the benefits of Felted Soap?

I love felted soaps for a few reasons.

• It’s beautiful
• Felted soap doesn’t leave water on your countertops.
• The wool makes soap suds up really well.
• You get extra scrubbing action with the wool fibers
• DIY wool felted soap is easy and fun to make

Is Felted Soap Sanitary?

Yes! Wool is pretty incredible in that it has natural antibacterial properties. It also has lanolin in it, which is a natural conditioner and waterproofer for the wool of a sheep.

Where can I get wool?

Just about everyone lives near a shepherd even if you don’t know it! Ask around at the farmers market or check your locally grown guide (here’s Minnesota’s).

You can also buy roving online.

What Wool Works Best for DIY Felted Soap?

Pretty much any type of sheep’s wool works best for felting soap. Since the wool acts as an additional scrubbing agent, coarse wools work even better than soft ones.

Whatever wool you get, you should be looking for what is called “Roving”. This is wool that has been cleaned, carded, and put into either big fluffy sheets or in a long continuous fluff of wool.

Does it matter what kind of soap I use?

Nope! You can buy any old bar at the store and add wool to it. You can make your own, or you can buy soap from a local soap maker.

Sometimes you can buy “seconds” or soap that turned out a little wonky at a discount. Once you add the beautiful felt to it no one will be the wiser!

Equipment for DIY Wool Felted Soap

Thankfully making DIY wool felted soap is so easy even little kiddos can do it! There are just a few supplies you will need.

• Wool Roving – This is wool that has been cleaned and “carded” which means sort of combed through so all the fibers are running the same way. You can use any colors you’d like.
• Nylon Stocking
• Soap
• Felting Needle- This is completely optional if you’d like to add a felted design on top after making the soap.
• Hot Water

How to make DIY Wool Felted Soap

Start by wrapping the bar of soap in the wool roving. You want to wrap at least two layers around the soap, going in both directions.

Next, hold the soap firmly in your hand and pull the nylon stocking over your hand. Hold your hand steady and pull the stocking, rather than stuffing the soap into the stocking. This will keep the wool in place and make it felt more evenly.

Once the soap is inside the stocking, run the soap under hot water. You can certainly use gloves if that makes things more comfortable. The water should be as hot as you can manage.

Vigorously rub the soap all over. Back, front, sides, corners, etc. The wool will begin to shrink down pretty quickly. After about five minutes of rubbing the wool, take it out of the sock to check it.

The felting process is done when the wool is completely enclosing the soap and is wrapped securely around it. It won’t be snug.

Allow the soap to dry.

And that’s it!

If you’d like to add a design, you can use felting needles to add more detailed designs to your soap (check out the video below) or you can put designs on the soap before you felt it.

Keep in mind that any designs that go on the soap before felting will likely turn out kind of abstract, as the wool will move around when you are rubbing it/felting it.

Watch and Learn

Our Goats

If you’d like to learn more about the goats who give us great milk for our soap making, check out our goats section of the blog!

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