How To Make Transparent Soap Base

This is a homemade recipe to make transparent crystal melt and pour base (glycerin soap base), with kitchen ingredients! You just have to source for the vegetable glycerin, stearic acid and coconut oil, the rest you can find in your kitchen dispenser. This soap base aims at being completely transparent and it hardly foams - but it still cleans. Also superfat is very low for the same reason.

The soap base looks like ice or glass, enabling to make very cute transparent soap bars.

Weight: 1000g

Difficulty: Advanced

Superfat: 2%

Lye concentration: 30%

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Prep Time: 30

Cook Time: 1

Total Time: 1 30

Method: Melt and Pour Soap Base

Cosmetic: Soap in Bulk

Servings: bulk bar of soap base

Author: Sofia Matias

Cost: $5,6 / 4,7€

Equipment

Ingredients

Instructions

Get Ready!

Wear goggles, gloves and mask! Look at “Safety Recommendations” in the video above or in How to Make Soap From Scratch
Assemble everything: ingredients, equipment, safety equipment. Prepare your workstation, including a well ventilated area to make the lye water. Measure all the ingredients. Don’t start the recipe without having everything ready!
Learn how to make sugar syrup in this video, but make sure you use the quantities indicated above: 200 g of sugar and 100 g of water. Do not let it turn into caramel, be careful with temperatures - and keep it thin.

Make the Lye Water

Make the lye solution according to How To Make Lye Water. Mix it until the vapors start to dissipate.

Heat the Oils

Heat the oils until the coconut oil and stearic acid are fully melted. The oils should be at a a temperature of 80ºC (180ºF). You can use the microwave or a double boiler.

Make the Soap

Pour the lye water into the oils. The mixture will harden and turn white (looking like salt or snow), due to the stearic acid. Mix with the stick blender, as much as you can.
NOTE: By using temperatures below 80ºC - 176ºF, something quite easy to achieve as your bowl will be at room temperature and the amount of lye water and oils are not enough to keep such high temperatures, your soap batter will harden and turn white. Follow the recipe and heat the soap batter in the end to get the transparent soap. Using other solutions, like a crock pot at high temperature, will overheat the sugar syrup and turn your soap base yellowish or even brownish. The way this recipe was made was the only time I cold get truly crystal-clear soap.
Add half of alcohol and glycerin and continue to mix well with the immersion blender. Your mixture should turn liquid and clear.
Add the rest of the alcohol and glycerin and continue to mix well with the immersion blender for around 4 to 5 minutes.
Add the sugar syrup and mix a bit longer.
If you are at this step with a clear mixture, you can skip this step. If your mixture is white like mine (because I've just heated the oils up to 60ºC), heat it in bagne-marie up to 80ºC (180ºF) and leave for a while at that temperature until your soap becomes completely clear.

Molding and Curing

Pour the soap into your mold. Your mold can be pretty much anything, but I've used a silicone cake mold. Sprinkle with alcohol to remove any bubbles, and cover it with transparent film.
Put your soap in the fridge and let it set for 24 h. After that, your soap is ready to be used.

Video

Tried this recipe?Send a pic to @herbalcochete!