Peppermint Soap Recipe

Try this peppermint soap recipe! I love the scent of both peppermint and spearmint plants when they are fresh. It’s minty, fresh, sharp, and transmits energy. So, I had to make a peppermint soap, and I am now sharing the recipe with you.

A very refreshing and mild soap, made with 100% peppermint-infused olive oil, peppermint essential oil, and decorated with dried peppermint leaves. Peppermint scent is wonderful, and this will turn your shower experience into a refreshing one.

Learn how to make a pure peppermint soap at home with this recipe.

Can You Put Peppermint In Soap?

You definitely can. You can add peppermint essential oil, or peppermint leaves, dried and in powder form. The peppermint essential oil will give your soap its sharp and minty scent. The peppermint leaves, however, won’t to do much more than decoration.

They won’t scent your soap or even give its green color as most of its properties are destroyed by saponification. But they will add tiny rustic brown speckles. If you like the speckles effect, you can use dried peppermint in powder in the same way to other soaps. In fact, most tea leaves will make this effect. I sort of like it, especially in herbal soaps.

Finally, you can infuse peppermint leaves in the soaping oils, as another way of adding peppermint to your soap. And that is exactly what we are going to do in this recipe.

peppermint

How Do You Make Homemade Peppermint Soap?

In this recipe, we will use peppermint in the three ways described in the chapter before. We will use peppermint-infused oil, peppermint essential oil and peppermint leaves dried and ground to powder. Yes, I really wanted to make a peppermint soap in and out. Can’t be more peppermint soap than this!

I’ve decided to make this a single-oil soap and I’ve used my favorite soap oil: olive oil. I’ve infused it for 6 weeks in peppermint leaves. The scent will come from peppermint essential oil and cedarwood atlas, as a scent fixer – and cedarwood essential oil is my woody favorite scent.

peppermint EO

According to this article from Healthline, peppermint oil can help with itchy skin, improving circulation (it’s a common oil to help with hair growth) and has anti-bacterial properties. This counts for both the peppermint-infused olive oil and peppermint essential oil. So, part of these properties will be imparted into this soap. Let’s see how well a mild and conditioning castile soap matches with the fresh energy of peppermint.

Naturally Colored Soap with Peppermint

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This recipe used half a teaspoon of green clay, to give the soap bars a light green color. The rest of the color is provided by the all-natural peppermint, and the peppermint-infused olive oil. The soap batter actually had a very pretty green color… but that was about to change., You know, I love natural colorants and was very eager to know how peppermint leaves would color my soap. The soap actually started greenish. This is how my soap looked after a few days.

peppermint soap recipe

But you can see already some brownish blemishes showing up. This is because peppermint does turn the soap brown. With curing, the peppermint infused in olive oil, along with the leaves (I really don’t know which one had a stronger effect, but I suspect of the infused olive oil), spread a natural brown throughout all the soap bars, even overcoming any green color from the green clay. The peppermint powder made for some really cute dark speckles in my soap.

And this was the outcome:

peppermint-soap-with-speckles

I do love the rustic look of this brown soap. But I understand if you want a greener soap. After all, peppermint is green. So, what can you do?

Use plain extra virgin olive oil (not infused), and green clay. Avoid to add the dried peppermint in the end. This is how olive oil soap colored with green clay looks like (no dried herbs inside).

french-green-clay-soap-recipe

If you prefer a bright green look, you can only get it with green micas. Use the green oxide or green chrome minerals for cosmetics, and use as little as 1/8 or 1/16 of a teaspoon. Mineral colorants are effetive and you don’t need much of it to color your soap. They are also quite stable in soap. Next peppermint soap I’ll make, I’ll color it with mineral colorants and show you the results here.

For now, I invite you to enjoy this soap naturally colored with peppermint.

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Peppermint Soap Recipe

This recipe is truly simple: olive oil, peppermint and a little bit of green clay. You can replace the peppermint for spearmint, a more common minty plant with very similar properties – it’s just less strong because it has no menthol. Apart from that, there is little to advise to change the soap recipe. Still, this is a very economical recipe, provided you get olive oil relatively cheap.

Trace

Since olive oil takes the longest time to trace, we can formulate this recipe in order to accelerate trace. Usually, what we want is the opposite way, but not with olive oil, as you can take 15 minutes with your immersion blender to get only to medium trace…

So what to do?

  • Use higher temperatures: to reach trace faster, you can use higher temperatures. I’ve got used to make my soap at room temperature when I don’t need to melt any solid oils. But you can heat up a little bit your olive oil, up to 40ºC-45ºC (104ºF – 113ºF) and trace will come faster.
  • Use higher lye concentration: water discounts, the most common term to use a higher lye concentration, help with soap hardening faster and… tracing faster as well.
  • Use a clay: clays help with water discount as well, since they absorb water.

As a side note, if in any recipe, you wish to slow down trace, just do the opposite of all these advices. With all these measures in place, my soap took 5 minutes to reach medium trace. Not bad at all for 100% olive oil.

soap with soda ash
Soda ash turned this deep blue soap into a light blue soap

Soda Ash

As this is a 100% olive oil soap, it tends to gain soda ash very easily (as I’ve learned the hard way) because it’s a 100% soft oils’ soap. If you want it to get as little soda ash as possible, sprinkle the soap with alcohol right after molding. Larn all about soda ash and how to avoid it in Soda Ash in Soap: What It Is, How to Remove It.

And remove the bars from the mold as late as possible: 7 days after pouring into the mold. I know it’s a test to your patience, but you do it sooner and you will definitely get soda ash. And since there’s no guarantee you won’t have soda ash, later on just expose your soap to a bit of steam, from a kettle for example. It will “clean” your soap from it. Just be careful to not get burned.

If you actually like the looks of soda ash on soap (I don’t mind it at all), skip the sprinkling with alcohol. Try this recipe at home and enjoy your soaps!!

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Find Where To Buy Handmade Peppermint Soap

Still not inspired to make your own soap at home? But you do wish to use or give it a try at a fresh, minty, handmade peppermint soap? You can find a few options online to buy handmade soap below:

How To Use This Soap

In the shower or bath, wet your hands and rub your soap in them to create a lather. Wash your hands first, then repeat the process and apply soap to your whole body using the soap directly and your hands. You may also wash your face with it. Rinse hands and body abundantly. Also wash your soap from lather before placing it in your soap dish or bag saver.

Washcloths and sponges should be avoided. Avoid washing your intimate zone and your hair, soap pH in not adequate for those parts of your body. Avoid eye contact with soap to prevent stinging. Make a patch test before using your soap. Stop using your soap if you feel any immediate adverse reaction in your skin (red skin, rashes, itching).

To take best advantage of your handmade soap (made by yourself or store-bougth), read How Do You Use Handmade Soap?

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Watch This Video About Safety

Cold Process Soap Making Tutorial Video

Cold Process Soap Making Lessons

The tutorials in this blog are a great – and free! – help to start with cold process soap making. Practice is the next step to harness the art of making soaps at home. However, I understand if you prefer to have some formal lessons, where you will feel more supported with the steps. Feel free to join these courses at Udemy.

How To Make Soap – Homemade Soap Making for Beginners – Shona O’Connor

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Botanical Skin Care Course Leaderboard1
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Peppermint Soap Recipe

A very refreshing and mild soap, made with 100% peppermint-infused olive oil, peppermint essential oil, and colored with green clay and dried peppermint leaves. Peppermint scent is wonderful, and this will turn your shower experience into a refreshing and minty one.
With olive oil, soap takes a long time to reach trace, but this recipe was formulated to ease your life. Took me less than 5 minutes to reach medium trace and have the soap ready to mold. Be careful with soda ash.
Difficulty: Easy
Weight: 455g (1 lb)
Superfat: 5%
Lye Concentration: 32%
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Method: Cold Process
Cosmetic: Soap Bar
Servings: 12 soap bars
Author: Sofia Matias
Cost: $6 / 6€

Ingredients

Oils

After trace Ingredients

Instructions

Get Ready!

  • Wear goggles and gloves! Look at “Safety Precautions” in the video above or in Soap Making Safety Precautions
  • Watch the video above about "Cold Process Soap Making Tutorial" or read the post Learn To Make Cold Process Soap for instructions on cold process soap making before starting. These are generic but important steps for all recipes.
    Pouring essential oils into soap batter
  • Assemble everything: ingredients, equipment, safety equipment. Prepare your workstations. Measure all the ingredients. Don’t start the recipe without having everything ready!
    soapmaking-workspace-preparation
  • Prepare your peppermint-infused oil in advance. If you are using the cold infusion method you need to prepare it 4 weeks before your soap recipe. Learn how to make infused oil in How To Make Infused Oil With Dried Herbs.
    oils infusions

Heat the Oil

  • Heat the olive oil to approx. 40ºC – 45ºC (104ºF – 113ºF). I've actually made the recipe at room temperature, but it was summer and the oil was almost at 30ºC (86ºF)
    Heating soaping oils in a microwave

Make the Lye Water

  • Make the lye solution according to How To Make Lye Water. Add the green clay and the salt before adding the lye. But it's ok if you add it later. Mix it until the vapors start to dissipate. The lye water will be dark green.
    green lye water

Make the Soap Batter

  • Use as a target temperature 40ºC for the oil-solution mixture. If necessary, you can reheat the oils, but not the lye solution.
    measure temperatures
  • Pour the lye water into the oils carefully. Mix oils and lye with the immersion blender.
    adding lye water
  • Use the immersion blender to reach trace. Use short pulses followed by steering the soap batter with the stick blender, as a spoon.
    reaching trace
  • At light to medium trace, add the dried peppermint leaves in powder at this point. You can mix it with the stick blender as it will progress slowly to heavy trace – my soap batter didn't reach it.
    add peppermint
  • Reach medium trace.
    reach medium trace

Add After Trace Ingredients

  • Add after trace ingredients: the extract and the essential oil blend. Stir with with a spoon, spatula or the stik blender, as there is no real danger of soap batter seizing with olive oil.
    add after trace

Molding the Soap

  • Pour the soap batter into the rectangular molds (use a pitcher if needed).
    mold soap
  • Sprinkle with alcohol or witch hazel.
    sprinkle alcohol
  • Let it set from 4 to 7 days. The longer you leave your soap bars in the mold, the smaller chance to get soda ash.
    peppermint soap setting
  • Learn how to clean all equipment with How to Clean Soap Making Equipment.
    soap making equipment to clean up

Curing the Soap

Video

Tried this recipe?Send a pic to @herbalcochete!

4 thoughts on “Peppermint Soap Recipe”

  1. Come on Sofia, I am really impressed. I feel like the more I see your articles, the more excited I get to see what you have to give this time. Really? Peppermint Soap? Never heard of it!. I know it would not be perfect at first time out tho, but I am willing to give it a try.

    • Hello Josh, I am delighted with your enthusiasm 🙂 Thanks for your kind comment!!

      This peppermint soap is a simple 100% olive oil soap scented with peppermint (and rosemary) essential oil. It’s both very soft and refreshing! I really like it (I am currently using it!).

      Cheers!

      Sofia

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