Make your own beautiful cakes of fragrant herbal soap. Purchase soap blocks at a crafts store, cut them into chunks, and melt them in the microwave. Add herbs, colour, and fragrance to the liquid soap and pour into moulds.

You will need:
- Soap base
- Cutting board
- Knife
- Glass measuring cup with pouring spout
- Microwave oven or double boiler
- Colour chips or liquid soap colourant
- Metal spoon
- Herbs and botanicals
- Essential oil in desired fragrance
- Moulds

Here's how:
1. Cut soap into 2cm cubes and place in the glass measuring cup. Heat until the soap is melted. In the microwave, it only requires about 45 seconds to melt the soap. Heat in short intervals to prevent boiling over.

2. Once the soap is melted, gradually add the colourant until the desired shade is achieved, stirring thoroughly. Next, add the desired herbs and botanicals. Add essential oil just before pouring liquid soap into the moulds to avoid cooking off the fragrance.

3. Let soap cool and harden before removing it from the moulds. When choosing plastic containers for moulds, use microwavable containers only.

Design Tips:
For a mild abrasive soap, use cornmeal, coffee, or ground almond.

For skin-softening benefits, add honey or calendula flower.

For astringent, healing, and antiseptic qualities, use chamomile flowers, tea tree oil, rosemary, lavender, or sage.

For a fresh scent and to remove cooking odours from your hands, add ground dried orange, lemon, or lime peel, mint, or cinnamon.