Servings: 12 soap bars
Cost: $10 - $30 / 8 - 25€
Equipment
- 4 Pitcher
Ingredients
Lye Water
- 380 g distilled water
- 142 g lye (100% sodium hydroxide)
- 2 tsp sodium lactate fine salt
Oils
- 300 g extra virgin olive oil
- 300 g refined or organic coconut oil
- 180 g sunflower oil
- 120 g castor oil
- 510 g sweet almond oil
After Trace
- 16 drops grapefruit seed extract (GSE) (anti-oxidant)
- 1 tsp ultramarine violet (CI 77007) ultramarine violte
- 1 tsp ultramarine blue (CI 77007) ultramarine blue
- ⅛ tsp activated charcoal
- 30 ml essential oils blend
Essential Oils Blend
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.
- Assemble everything: ingredients, equipment, safety equipment. Prepare your workstations. Measure all the ingredients. Don’t start the recipe without having everything ready!
Prepare the colorants
- After measuring your oils, retrieve 1 tbsp from the liquid oils, and add it to the ultramarine blue in a small cup. Mix well, and use a milk frother if necessary to prevent colorant lumps.
- Do the same for the ultramarine violet and the charcoal
Heat the Oils
- Heat the oils until the solid oils are completely melted (it is not necessary to heat all the time). Up to around 60ºC.
Make The Lye Water
- Make the lye solution according to How To Make Lye Water. Add the salt or sodium lactate to the water and mix. Add the lye and mix well until the vapors start to dissipate. Strain the lye water to avoid any lye crystals in your soap.
Make The Soap Batter
- Use as a target temperature 40ºC - 38ºC (104ºF - 100ºF) for the oil-solution mixture. It can be lower, and with this recipe it's advised to make the soap with low temperatures.
- Add the lye water to the oils carefully, without slipping.
- Reach light trace with the immersion blender.
Add After Trace Ingredients
- Add after trace ingredients: essential oils blend and grapefruit extract. Mix well the batter only with a spoon / spatula.
Make The Layers and Mold The Soap
- Pour around 250 ml of soap in each pitcher.
- Add the violet ultramarine to one of the pitchers and mix well with a spoon or spatula, until the soap is homogeneous.
- Add the blue ultramarine to another pitcher and mix well.
- Add the activated charcoal to a third pitcher and mix well. Mix also the white soap batter in order to not harden too much. By now the soap batter should be like medium/heavy trace.
- Using a loaf soap mold, pour first a layer of the blue soap batter covering the soap mold bottom completely.
- With the violet pitcher, pour a layer of soap, with some distance from the soap mold (around 10-15 cm). This distance allows the drops to fall with some speed, entering the previous layer and making a natural swirl with a crescent moon shape.
- Do the same with the white and grey soap pitchers. The order color is totally up to you.
- Restart with the blue soap pitcher and pour all soap in the same way, until you are left with some blue or violet soap and a bit of white soap.
- Pour the last layer with blue or violet soap, and shake the soap mold to even out the soap (not too hard or you might lose the swirling).
Decorate The Soap
- Pour a small line of white soap along the soap surface. My soap was already too thick to pour, I had to spoon it.
- Make a top design with a wooden stick: draw "S" along the soap surface then a middle line. Sprinkle the top of your soap with alcohol or witch hazel.
- Now you need to insulate the loaf mold, so that the soap gels uniformly. You can cover it all around with a blanket or a thick towel. You can also use your oven: pre-heat the oven with 40ºC. Turn it off then place the loaf mold inside.
- Learn how to clean all equipment with How to Clean Soap Making Equipment.
Unmolding and Curing
- After 48 hours, unmold the soap and cut it into bars. See How To Cure Soap, in the chapter "Unmoulding And Cutting Soap" for more detail on how to cut soap.
- Let the bars cure for 4 to 6 weeks. See How To Cure Soap and How Do You Store Homemade Soap? Enjoy your soaps!!
Video
Tried this recipe?Send a pic to @herbalcochete!
