Servings: 10 soap bars
Cost: $10 - $40 / 8€ - 32€
Equipment
Ingredients
Lye Water
- 367 g distilled water
- 143 g lye (100% sodium hydroxide)
- 2 tsp turmeric
Oils
- 425 g extra virgin olive oil
- 325 g refined or organic coconut oil
- 150 g sunflower oil
- 50 g castor oil
- 50 g refined or organic shea butter
After Trace
- 8 drops grapefruit seed extract (GSE) (anti-oxidant)
- 18 g essential oils blend
- alcohol or witch hazel to sprinkle
Essential Oils Blend
- 1 tsp essential oil cinnamon bark do not exceed 5g usage
- 1 tsp essential oil ylang-ylang
- 1 tsp essential oil clary sage
- 1 tsp essential oil sandalwood amyris
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!
Heat the Oils
- Heat the oils until the solid oils are completely melted (it is not necessary to heat all the time).
Prepare the Lye Water
- Make the lye solution according to How To Make Lye Water. Add the turmeric to the water before making the solution. Mix it until the vapors start to dissipate.
- Measure and add the turmeric to the lye water, and mix well. If necessary, use a whisker. There should be no clumps and lye water will turn dark yellow/light brownish.
- Optional step - If you wish to have decorative dark spots on your soap: before adding the turmeric, stir the lye water very well until there are NO visible lye crystals. Then add the turmeric and mix with a spoon or whisker to avoid turmeric clumps. You can then skip the step of straining the lye water to have the turmeric spice floating on your soap. You can also add a teaspoon of turmeric later with after trace ingredients.
- Strain your lye water into the oils to catch all the turmeric and any remaining undissolved lye crystals.
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. Reach trace with the immersion blender.
- Add the extract and essential oil(s) after tracing and stir with just a spoon. Cinnamon essential oil is known to accelerate trace so be aware, the mixture can turn solid very quickly, although I didn't have that experience.
Molding and Cutting
- Pour the soap batter into the large soap mold and, if you wish, make some effects on the top of the dough with a spoon, spatula or fork (see video or chapter above "Creating Effects on Your Soap")
- Sprinkle the dough with alcohol or witch hazel. Cover it with a transparent film.
- Now you need to insulate the large 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. See chapter above "Using a Soap Loaf Mold" NOTE: this is not an optional step, if you don't insulate your loaf soap mold the soap will gel in the center and not in the extremities. You will get a dark round mark on your soap. However, if this happens, the soap is perfectly good to use, the problem is purely visual and nothing else.
- Wait 48 hours, keeping an eye on the hardness of the soap.
- 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.
Video
Tried this recipe?Send a pic to @herbalcochete!
