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Olive Oil Soap Base

Here is another soap base recipe, made with my favorite soap oil: olive oil. Make this melt and pour base (glycerin soap base) at home with kitchen ingredients! You just have to source for the vegetable glycerin, the rest you can find in your kitchen dispenser.
Weight: 1 Kg
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour
Method: Melt and Pour Soap Base
Cosmetic: Soap in Bulk
Servings: 1 soap bulk bar
Author: Sofia Matias
Cost: $4 / 4€

Ingredients

Solvents

Sugar Syrup

Instructions

Get Ready!

  • Wear goggles, gloves and mask! Look at “Safety Recommendations” in the video above or in How to Make Soap From Scratch
    safety equipment
  • 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!
    soapmaking-workspace-preparation
  • Learn how to make sugar syrup in this video, but make sure you use the quantities indicated above: 110 g of sugar and 100 g of water. Do not let it turn into caramel - keep it thin and white.
    sugar syrup

Heat the Oils

  • Heat the oils up to 65 °C.Let the coconut oil fully melt.

Make the Lye Water

  • Make the lye solution according to How To Make Lye Water. Add the fine salt and the kaolin clay to it. Mix it until the vapors start to dissipate.

Make the Soap

  • Measuring temperatures is not so critical as it is for cold process. Still, it's always a good practice to check if the lye water differs in temperature by more than 10ºC/ºF from oils. If yes, heat the oils a little bit or let the lye water cool down, to avoid volcano effects.
  • Pour the lye water into the oils. Mix well for a few minutes with a whisker.
  • Add the alcohol and mix well. Then add the glycerin. While you can add them seperately, I've previously mixed both ingredients in 1 pitcher.
  • Mix well for 10 minutes, then let it sit for 2 minutes. You can use an immersion blender, but it's not required.
  • The mixture will start to create a bit of foam/bubbles, and then will make a small "parafin-like" film at the surface. It will also smell something like jelly in the making. These are signs that the recipe is going well and your soap is saponifying.
  • Add the sugar syrup and continue to mix well.
  • If your soap is not showing the signs of saponification, or you are observing floating oils - the soap batter will look "oily" - , heat the mixture up to 60 °C and use an immersion blender on it for around 5 minutes.

Molding and Curing

  • Pour the soap into your mold. Your mold can be pretty much anything. I've used a silicone cake mold.
  • Sprinkle with alcohol to remove any bubbles. Let your soap set for 24 h, in the fridge, or it won't solidify.
  • Let it cure for 15 days. If your soap base starts to "sweat", cover it in plastic wrapping film. It shouldn't, due to the clay in it.
  • My soap base was a bit soft: I could make a mark by pressing the soap with my finger. Inside it was partially liquid. However, the final soap was perfect, hard and dry. The soap base was quite good to melt and pour.
  • If for some reason, the final soap made with this base is soft as well, add 1 tsp of fine salt, and re-prepare it as any melt and pour soap.
    heat-melt soap
Tried this recipe?Send a pic to @herbalcochete!