Christmas Melt and Pour Scrubbies

By David Fisher, About.com

Sometimes in all of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, kids can take a little extra coaxing to settle into their routines and get into the bath tub.

This project was designed with those kids (mine included!) in mind. It's a simple variation of my Animal Melt and Pour Scrubbies project - except with Christmas themed nylon scrubbies.

For this project, you'll need:

A basic understanding of Melt and Pour Soap Making
Some clear and/or white melt and pour soap base
Fragrance or essential oil
Colorant and/or mica
A container or mold of some sort that will fit your nylon scrubbie (I'm using a slice of 3" PVC pipe with an end cap)

You can use anything you like for the mold - a yogurt container, small plastic bowl or jar. Just be sure that you'll be able to get the soap out of it once it's hardened.
A nylon scrubbie

Assemble your materials and ingredients and we're ready to get started.

The nylon scrubbies I had for this project were bigger than the animal scrubbies. On those, I used a 4 oz. white cosmetic jar. Here, I'm using a 3" slice of 3" diameter PVC pipe.

Note: The end caps are usually called "test caps" and are found on the same aisle as the pipe
Insert the scrubbies into the molds, making sure that the nylon is evenly distributed around the inside of the mold.

Cut up, weigh and melt your melt and pour soap base.

I'm using white melt and pour soap base for the snowman and clear base for the reindeer.

These molds took about 9.5 oz. of soap each.

You can estimate how much soap you're going to need by pouring water into the mold (with the scrubbie in it) and measuring how much water it will hold. If you're doing more than one soap, just multiply the amount by the number of soaps you are going to make.

Once the soap is completely melted, you can add your colorants, micas and fragrance. Stir well, but not so quickly as to make lots of bubbles.

For the white snowman, I added about 1/8 tsp. of snowflake mica and about .3 oz. of Fresh Snow fragrance.

For the reindeer, I used about 1/2 tsp of green gel tone colorant and about .3 oz. of Cranberry Zinger fragrance.

Note: I generally add about 3% fragrance to melt and pour soap base. That's about .5 oz. of fragrance per pound of soap base.

Slowly pour the soap into the molds. Again...go very slowly. It takes some time for the soap to dribble down past the nylon scrubbie and into the mold. If you pour too fast, it will just dribble down the side of the mold.
Trust me on this.

If the soap ends up getting to thick to pour easily, just microwave it for a few seconds to get it liquid again.

Set the soaps aside to cool. It will take a few hours for them to harden up enough to remove from the mold. Pry the "test caps" off with a knife, being careful not to damage them. (So that you can reuse them.)

With most soap bases, you'll be able to just pull gently on the scrubbie and the soap will come out easily. Some soap bases will be a bit harder to get out. If they are, just put the molds in the refrigerator for an hour or so. That usually makes it easier.

Another trick, should you need it - with these particular PVC pipe molds, put a regular size can of soup on the counter and push the mold down onto the can. The can will exactly fit into the inside of the pipe mold, pushing the soap up out of the mold.

Trim or round the edges, if needed, and you're ready to go. Since it's melt and pour soap, you can use them right away!

Source: http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/holidayprojects/ss/xmasscrubbies.htm