Cold Process Soap Recipe

For those of you who have been asking about my soap recipe here it is for you!
I usually make about 4 batches at a time, cause I like a larger amount, but I broke it down to a smaller batch size for those of you just starting out!


Basic Soap

3.5 oz lye
10.25 oz water
10.5 oz oil
1.5 oz butter (shea butter, cocoa butter, mango butter etc.)
1 oz castor oil
7 oz vegetable shortening
7.5 oz coconut oil


Ok, here are some variations:  If you don't want to use vegetable shortening, you can substitue more coconut oil for it.  Castor oil helps it sudz more, but if you don't want to add that, simply substitute 1 oz of any other liquid oil.  If you want, you can substitute palm oil for the coconut oil, but it makes a softer bar.


Prepare the soap as you would any cold processed soap.  I don't do exact stuff, like temperatures, exact times etc.  If you want more detailed instructions just follow other cold process soap instructions you can find online:
 Here are my instructions:   Mix lye with water, stir and let cool while you melt your oils.  Melt all the oil, butters and vegetable shortening in a stainless pan and heat just until melted.  When oil is melted, and lye mixture is cooled to about the same temp as the melted oil mixture, add the lye mixture to the oil slowly while you mix with a stick blender or spoon.  (Or you can mix it together with a spoon, then pour mixture into a blender and blend on low speed until trace)  Stir or blend the mixture until trace occurs.  This means you stir until you can take a spoon and drip some of the mixture on top of the rest and it stays for a few seconds before it disappears into the pot.  If you dribble some of the mixture on top and you can't see the outline of the drip you need to continue stirring.

After your soap has reached trace, pour into soap molds lined with butcher paper, wax side up.  Cover with more butcher paper, then cover with towels or blankets to keep it warm for 24 hours or until set.
Then remove the soap from the molds, cut into bars and cure for 3-6 weeks.


And that's my basic soap recipe!  I vary this for different things, adding goats milk, doing pure castile soap, etc.  So don't be afraid to play around with it and have fun!

For more information on essential oils, and skin care recipes visit my Facebook page at:
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