How To Felt Soap

Today’s feature is a mixed bag of tutorials showing you how to felt a bar of soap, these make a really cool washcloth and soap in one. This is new to me and I think these would make great gifts!

SuZanna Anna Wet Felting A Bar Of Soap On HGTV

Video Summary:

• Pull off some wool fiber and wrap it nice and tight around the bar of soap (one way).
• Next wrap some wool tightly the other way (perpendicular). This helps the fibers felt together.
• Next pull off little strands of wool fiber in contrasting colors and lay them gently on top of the bar of soap to give a tie-dye effect. Do this on one side.
• Put the wool wrapped bar of soap in a clean nylon stocking. This will help the fibers stay together while you felt.
• Tools Needed: Washboard, hot water, dish soap, towel
• Drip a little bit of dish soap on top of the bar of soap (now in the nylon stocking) to get the soap started, you just need a bit since the soap will start working from the inside bar.
• Scrub the bar of soap on the washboard (quickly, back and forth, all sides) for about 10 minutes until the wool is felted enough so you can take the soap out of the stocking. Notice that there doesn’t seem to be any water involved at this point?
• Keep rubbing until you can’t pinch any wool away from the soap.
• Rinse off extra soap in the bowl of hot water.
• Blot it in the towel to remove excess water.
• Set the soap on a drying rack to dry.

You can see another video here with a different method–Wet Felting Wool Over Soap:

Instead of using a washboard, just rub the soap with your fingers, working for several minutes to felt the wool. Toward the end of the video you’ll see a suggestion to first cover the soap with a plastic bag and then work on it (contains the mess). In the comments area you’ll see this tip:

The wool will continue to felt more firmly with use and the soap will dwindle and disappear leaving you with a little felted wool bundle that has a hallow core. You can carefully slice it open to make a coin purse, or cut off the top and add a strap to make a necklace pouch or holder of some kind.

Here’s a website that details the process from Mielke’s Fiber Arts: How to felt over a bar of soap!. The pictures are really clear so you’ll get a good idea of how things look throughout the process. This site advises that wet felting only works with wool or other protein fibers (such as llama or angora) and that some wools felt better than others.

You can buy bars of soap to felt, but you can also make your own. Here are a couple really good resources to get you started:

• How To Make Homemade Soap
• How To Make Soap

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