EspañolMaking soap for the first time may be intimidating, but isn’t difficult. This quick and easy beginner soap recipe comes with fun ideas for personalizing it by adding exfoliants, essential oils, etc.
You know when you get really excited about making something…
Then it flops?
That was me making soap for the first time.
Growing up, I was always interested in making things.
I loved being outside in the garden, and growing herbs in every little spare area of the garden. My mom didn’t appreciate my spearmint overtaking the rest of her garden quite as much as I did, but she still allowed me to explore my creativity.
One of the books at home that I loved was a book about making your own soaps and perfumes. I followed a few of the recipes, but didn’t really have much luck with them. I tried making a rose petal perfume, but it made a brown liquid that went bad right away.
Looking back, that book probably wasn’t as great as I remember it being. 😉
My first attempt at making homemade soap
The worst disaster, though, was when I tried to make soap.
The book shared ways to be frugal. It explained how to clean used cooking oil for making soap.
For some reason, I decided that I would recycle oil that very first time I made soap.
I mean, reuse, recycle, right?!?!?
Refining the oil was a horrible, messy process, and I don’t know what sort of quality fat I ended up with. I proceeded, though, and continued to make my soap.
I was excited, hopeful, and optimistic about my soap. I mean it looked like soap, so I must have reached success, right?
Um, no! It stung every time I used it!
Years later, I think I know what the problem was…
I probably refined an unknown mixture of vegetable oils. Unless you know which oil you are using, you can’t just use the same amount of lye for all oils and expect the soap to turn out the same. Plus, the typical light vegetable oils like corn oil or canola oil, just don’t make very good soaps on their own. (You can use them in smaller percentages in soaps with other oils like olive oil and coconut oil.)
I thought that maybe it was because I didn’t let it sit. In fact, years later, I don’t even remember the book mentioning that you should let your soap sit; it probably did; I probably had. Either way, though, had I made the soap right, it shouldn’t have stung days later.
By that point the saponification process, the chemical reaction which turns lye and oil into soap, would have finished. More likely, my soap used too much lye for the amount of (low quality) oil I was using. I ended up throwing most of my soap away, only to find, and try, a bar years later. It was covered with brown spots (aka dreaded orange spots in soapmaking). While it lathered up and no longer stung as much, it still wasn’t a great soap so I threw it away.
Part of me had been wanting to try making soap again, but part of me was held back by my not-so-stellar first experience with soap making.
Trying to make homemade soap. Again.
Months ago, I bought lye with the intention of making some soap again. The bottle of lye sat in my kitchen unused for weeks. When I finally sat down to find a good recipe for it, I became overwhelmed!
I wasn’t really finding straight recipes for making soap, but was instead led to various lye calculators that would help me formulate my own soap recipe.
Normally I love this sort of experimentation, but being a newbie with soap making, I just wanted somebody to tell me exactly what to do; just this once!!
To be honest, seeing that most of the calculations and recipes were calculated in ounces really intimidated me too. Although, after being in Spain for many years now, I still weigh myself in pounds and not kilos, I much prefer seeing these sorts of things in grams than ounces.
Are they weight ounces? Fluid ounces?!?!?!?
I searched the web in Spanish, hoping to find some good soap recipes in grams, and I did!
I made my second soap from a recipe off a Spanish blog, and I have been playing with the concentrations ever since.
Ar first I was going to make a pure Castile soap.
What is Castile soap?
In the eyes of a purist, Castile soap uses olive oil as the only oil in the recipe. After much experimentation, I now have several Castile soap recipes up on the blog. If you prefer, you can make my pure Castile bar soap or my homemade liquid castile soap.
The term “Castile soap” has, over the years, expanded to include soaps made with only vegetable oils. Coconut oil is often added to improve lather, and other oils may also be added to give the soap other properties. (Soaps made with only coconut oil are very cleansing and provide a great, bubbly lather, but they can be drying on the skin.)
Soaps made with only olive oil tend to be very conditioning soaps. Olive oil is great for making soaps for face and body for that very reason. The problem with olive oil in soap is that it isn’t considered to be as “cleansing,” nor does it make a bubbly lather.
I had bought a liter of olive oil to make soap earlier that morning, but I decided that my husband was’t going to be impressed with a soap that wouldn’t lather much…
So, I decided to make a modified castile soap, a soap that not only uses olive oil, but that also uses coconut oil.
Watch me make this Easy, Beginner Soap.
Why This combination for an Easy, Beginner Soap?
Why did I formulate this soap the way I did to make it a great, customizable basic beginner soap?
It’s a great, conditioning soap that is perfect for face and body!
There are lye calculators online that will help you to formulate a recipe for a balanced bar of soap. They will give you an idea about how cleansing vs. conditioning a soap will be, what type of lather it will give, etc.. This soap falls on the conditioning end of the spectrum.
If you based this recipe just on the prediction of one of those calculators, you’d say that this soap could be more on the cleansing side, and could use more bubbles.
In practice, though, I find this soap to be great! I don’t have a problem with this soap leaving a greasy residue, and it feels perfectly cleansing to me. It also gives me a great lather from the beginning. (Some soaps need to set for longer first.)
I’m not the only one who feels this way. A lot of people prefer using a pure Castile soap, made with only olive oil, for face and body. Pure Castile soap falls even further down the conditioning/less lather/less cleansing end of the spectrum.
Apart from this being a great soap, it is a simple soap to make.
Not only are the ingredients simple to find, there aren’t a lot of them. I purposely didn’t want to use a lot of different oils in this soap because seeing too many ingredients is enough to scare off beginner soap makers! Olive oil and coconut oil are both oils that should be relatively simple for anybody to find. Plus they are some of the more economical oils that are good for making soaps.
This soap also has a long “trace” time. “Trace” refers to the stage in soap making when the oils and the lye have begun to emulsify and the chemical process of saponification (becoming soap) begins. Some soaps move from thickening to solidifying very quickly, leaving little time for personalizing your soap with essential oils, colorants, or exfoliants. This soap recipe has a longer working time that will allow people to have fun adding ingredients to their soaps.
Before you begin making soap, read these safety warnings:
Keep in mind when making soap that you have to be very careful with the lye. I don’t think the book I had read was quite as emphatic about that as most places I have read since. I don’t remember mixing the lye into the water outside, or wearing protective gloves or glasses. Luckily, nothing bad happened.
I don’t want to scare you, but I do want you to be careful. Lye is a strong base that is very caustic and can cause chemical burns just like any strong acid would. Keeping that in mind, protect yourself when making soap!
Wear glasses and gloves throughout the process!
Mix the soap outside or in a well ventilated area.
If you should happen to get some lye on your skin, rinse it off with plenty of clean, cool water- not vinegar.
You can later neutralize leftover lye wherever you have spilled it with a bit of vinegar, if you feel it is necessary, but always rinse everything well with water first.
I had read in the past that lye on the skin should be quickly neutralized with vinegar, to neutralize it as quickly as possible, but it was pointed out to me that you should NOT do that. After further investigation, it appears that you could inadvertantly be setting off a chemical reaction that gives off enough heat to burn you further.
Ok let’s get to making an easy beginner soap!
Easy Basic Beginner Soap
Ingredients
- 500 g extra virgin olive oil
- 100 g coconut oil (Regular coconut oil that melts around 76ºF)
- 10 g lavender essential oil
- 80 g lye
- 195 g water
Instructions
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Mix your lye into your water (Not the other way around!!!). Do this in a recipient that can handle heat; I used a glass bowl. It is best to do this step outside so that you don't fill your house with the fumes. Try not to breath them in!! Once the lye has dissolved, leave the mix to cool in an area where no kids or pets have access to it!!!
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Meanwhile, you can weigh and mix your olive and coconut oils. I mixed them in a large, glass bowl with room for adding and mixing the other ingredients.
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After the lye mixture has cooled a bit, bring it back inside and pour into your oil mix. Mix them together gently at first.
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Once your lye mix has been incorporated into your oils, you can start to blend them with a hand blender. Be careful not to spray the mixture all over!! I blended mine in the bottom of my sink, and distanced myself as much as the blender would allow, just in case!! You can do this step by hand, but it supposedly will take a very long time.
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When your mixture starts to thicken like mayonnaise, after a few minutes, you are at the stage that is called "trace." That is what you want!!!
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Mix in your essential oils.
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Pour into soap molds. (I used a silicone pan and some plastic containers. It's a good idea to oil the plastic containers beforehand to prevent sticking.)
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Cover and set aside for at least 24 hours. It will probably get warm. If you cover it with a cloth to keep the warmth in, it supposedly contributes to the quality of the soap. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do it anyway. 🙂
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After 24 hours, uncover and see if you can unmold it. If it is too soft, wait a few more hours and unmold. You can put it in a cold place to help shrink it a little to help the process out. Don't wait too long or it will be too hard to easily cut into bars.
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Cut into bars. I like the look of big, chunky square-ish bars. The nice thing about making your own, is that you can decide how you want to cut them.
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Let set for around a month, turning every day or two at first, and then every week later on. This is to let your soap dry out and harden.
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Enjoy your soap!!
Once I reached trace, I decided I couldn’t resist trying out adding things to my soap.
I made the majority of the soap in a silicone bread pan using lavender essential oil just as the recipe had suggested. That said, I set some of it aside before adding in the essential oil. I divided the soap without lavender oil, and added coffee grounds to part of it and tangerine essential oil and poppy seeds to the rest.
The coffee grounds and poppy seeds should help with exfoliation when using the soap. If I decide that I like the coffee soap, I would probably substitute coffee for the water in the recipe when making a coffee soap to give it more of a coffee scent. Who knows, maybe the caffeine in the grounds can help with circulation and combatting cellulite. A lot of cellulite creams do add caffeine! Coffee is also known to help remove odors, so it might be a good soap for cleaning up in the kitchen too.
As for the tangerine poppy seed soap, it just sounded like a fun combination to me. I love citrus scents, and think I will have to buy more citrus essential oils for using in soaps and other personal products.
Now that I have gotten over the hurdle that has kept me from making soap again all of these years, I forsee myself experimenting with it quite a bit. The lye calculators no longer intimidate me either; I can just convert from ounces to grams! (That said, most digital scales allow you to weigh in either.)
Since I originally wrote this post, I’ve shared more soap recipes:
This post is also available in Español.
what is the alternative to immersion blender
Hi Harrish,
You could use some sort of electronic whisk. If you don’t have anything like that, you can do it by hand, but I’ve heard it takes a very long time and a lot of effort!
I’m not brave enough to have ever tried it. 😉
We are having a project about making a soap and my teacher showed this simple recipe to us. I am wondering what are the benefits of this soap? Thank you!
Hello,
Well, it’s a simple soap to make and is mild and conditioning because of the high concentration in olive oil. The added coconut oil gives bubbles and cleaning power. I think it’s a simple, well-rounded soap. 🙂
Thank you for this. Can I make with Jersey Cow Milk instead of the water? Does the amount change?
Hi Jen,
You can definitely use some milk for part of the water component, but you have to work a bit differently with milk to prevent it from scorching when you mix it with lye. Normally, people freeze the milk first. You probably wouldn’t want to use all milk either or it makes it a bit more difficult to keep the soap light in color.
I have two recipes that show how to use milk when making soap.
My pumpkin spice soap recipe is a simple variation of this beginner soap recipe but that also uses goat milk and pumpkin puree.
I also have a recipe up for a goat milk soap with honey. Reading through those posts will hopefully help you gain the confidence for working with milk in soap.
I should say that the total amount of liquid shouldn’t change…
exchange whatever percentage of water for milk and you should be fine!
I want to have mango, apple, banana probably cucumber, ginger, things of that sort. How do I add them to m soap?
Hi Carmelita,
You can add those as a puree as part of the water portion of the recipe. Be careful not to add too much or it can throw off the texture of the soap and could eventually keep it form self preserving. (Soaps don’t use preservatives and keep well because of their high pH. The bars also have limited moisture which helps. Too many added organic ingredients may throw that off, though.)
I have an example of this recipe modified to include goat milk and pumpkin puree- my pumpkin spice soap.
This is such an awesome post!! I wish I had seen this a few months ago. I know, for myself, the “calculators” were so intimidating and I was just like you…..someone PLEASE JUST GIVE ME A RECIPE!! lol. You are awesome for doing this and for giving us new soapers the confidence to figure it out! Your recipe is such a great “base” and I will gladly use it adding ‘extras’ to it and experimenting! Thank you again!
Thanks, Anna!
I’m happy to help people start!
I actually have 2 recipes on this blog that are basically just adding different things to this main recipe. If you’ve never tried with goat milk, the pumpkin spice soap recipe shows how to incorporate it into the recipe. (The other is the gingerbread soap.)
All of that said, my favorite is making liquid soap. If you haven’t tried yet, I have recipes for liquid soap that you should be able to make easily. (You could try the pure liquid castile soap or Dr. Bronner’s copycat maybe.)
Hi! Where is the best place to purchase a soap cutter? I can’t find one anywhere! 🙂 Thanks for the instructional video!
Hi Charles,
There are lots to be found on Amazon. I think I bought mine years ago from one on Amazon.es (Spain’s Amazon). Amazon.com has a lot more options available, though. If I were in the US, I’d probably buy a set like this one to try out their silicone lined wooden mold.
It looks awesome to me, and I can’t tell you the number of times I wished I had another mold.Ok! Thank you so much for your help. You video is great. Keep it up!
Hi Tracy, I made the soap using the easy recipe-coconut oil and olive oil combo around April 10th. The soap cured in a dry spot for a month and then I tried it. The suds are great but the bar turns into mush, clear beautiful golden like think syrup when water touches it. So now it’s been a little over 6 weeks and still mush. The bars a still a bit soft. I make mayonnaise so I know what trace should look like and I think I didn’t let it get stiff enough. I stopped at with would have been less than soft peaks if it was whipping cream. Could that be it? I would like to try again with more info. I will definitely blend it to a stiffer trace but can you think of anything else? Should I mill it? Should I melt it down with water and use it as a liquid soap? and start over?? It’s lovely is a slimy glisteny sort of way.
Thanks, Tracy for your joy in your directions and for your patience and compassion in your replies, it really shows,
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Hmmmm… It sounds to me like you probably did reach a light trace if it did get to a light whipped cream appearance. On the other hand, it is possible that the coconut oil was thickening up again and you didn’t reach trace. Did you melt the coconut oil? And how cold was it where you were working?
You can sometimes get a “false trace” when working with solid oils like coconut oil in a cold environment. You melt them down, and then mix them with the other oils and lye, and then as they cool, they solidify somewhat again, making it look like you’ve reached trace when you haven’t.
If it was really cold out and all of your ingredients were cold when working with them (it is still very possible to make soap that way as I have done so while experimenting many times. 😉 ), a couple of things can happen.
1. It can take longer to reach trace, so it’s possible to not have reached it.
2. Not as much of the humidity evaporates away, meaning that the bar of soap has more water in it so you end up with a softer soap. (It may harden with time, but would probably take a very long time to do so. Some people actually let their Castile soaps cure for a full year before using them to allow them to fully harden and develop a better lather.)
Other possible problems that come to mind…
How sure are you about the quality of the olive oil you were using? Some people have told me that there are a lot of olive oils in the US marketed as olive oils, but that have been combined with other oils. Olive oil is basically the only liquid oil I know of that makes a solid, hard bar of soap (though it does take some curing time for it to fully harden.) Other liquid vegetable oils tend to make softer, “slimier” bars of soap. That’s why you wouldn’t normally make a soap with only corn oil or sunflower oil or something like that, but you can totally make a bar of soap with only olive oil, or with only solid oils like coconut oil, lard, or tallow. I’m not saying it’s the issue you are having, but you may want to take a look as it could be a possibility!
How sure are you about the measurements? Too much oil for the lye in a recipe will definitely result in a soft bar of soap! I found that out the hard way once when I misread one of my own recipes. Ha! that soap stayed really soft for months. It improved with time, but was never a super hard bar of soap. I think I eventually melted a couple of the remaining bars down and mixed them with another harder bar of soap that I didn’t really love either. That made a decent multipurpose soap.
So, what can you do with your soap as is?
There are a few possibilities, depending on how soft it is…
1. You could wait it out and hope it hardens up as more of the liquid evaporates from it. You definitely want to keep it in a dry place so that as much humidity can be evaporated as possible.
2. You can rebatch it by grating/cutting it into smaller pieces and melting it down. You may need to add some more water to it to help melt it into something workable, but the heat should help evaporate the water off once it’s melted. You can then repour and allow to harden again. It may look a bit more rustic after rebatching, but sometime you can get it looking pretty smooth. If you knew there had been an issue with measurements, you could also try to remedy the situation upon melting (like adding more lye), but unless you know for sure there was a mistake, and what that mistake was, I wouldn’t mess with trying to fix measurements that are off!
3. I’ve grated down soaps I didn’t like that much and used them to wash my clothes in the washing machine. I wouldn’t really recommend doing that if you have hard water, though, as it can lead to a buildup.
4. While you “can” make liquid soap with it, I’m not really a fan of making feaux liquid soaps from bar soaps. I’ve never been able to get them to behave the same way as liquid soap does, and don’t understand how there are so many posts about doing that floating around the internet. 🙂 I’ve tried with several types of soap and never been happy with it. I much prefer making real liquid soap with potassium hydroxide. (Bar soaps use sodium hydroxide as the lye, while liquid soaps use potassium hydroxide.)
Without being there with you, it’s hard for me to pinpoint the issue, but maybe some of my thinking “out loud” helps you somehow?
Thanks, Tracy, I will leave my dear bars to dry some more, maybe rebatch a few for experimentation and make another batch being very careful with measurements. I checked the olive oil and it doesn’t say one way or the other about being 100% olive oil so I will use it again paying attention to trace and temperature. Spring here in SF Bay Area is warmish but foggy so I will also pay attention to the temp and humidity. If it still doesn’t work, I will try another olive oil. I won’t attempt to add lye at this pint in my education as an apprentice soap maker.
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
I actually spent the morning rebatching soaps I wasn’t 100% happy with. One of them was for the very same reason- the soap turned out too soft, probably because I did everything in super cold and none of the liquid evaporated out. (I had even used solid coconut oil to prove a point.) To top it off, I had added honey to it, without having discounted that from the amount of water.
Anyway, I had left some bars to further dry, and after several months, they are much better. They were still on the slightly soft side, though, so I decided to rebatch half of the batch this morning. It ended up separating and making a bit of a mess. I poured it into molds, and it hardened pretty quickly, and it looks like it will be usable, but it’s definitely not as pretty as it was. Hopefully, it will be a harder bar of soap, though.
The other soap I rebatched came out quite nice looking, so you never know. Some soaps will melt more smoothly than others. In the end, this ends up being all about experimentation. At first, it can be intimidating, but once you’ve tried a bit of everything, you aren’t as afraid to do it anymore.
If it weren’t for all of my mistakes, I would have never learned anything. 😉 I wish you the best of luck with it!
HI WE ARE FROM TALGARNO PS WE ARE MAKING SOAP TODAY
Hello!
How fun! I hope it goes well for you! 🙂
Hi Tracy!
Thank you for your recipe! I really want to make those shampoo and conditioner bars that are becoming popular and save on plastic waste! Do you have any tips/ideas/recipes for these? Thank you!
Hi Merissa,
Not yet!
I’m looking into making a detergent based shampoo bar to try it out of curiosity. Soap based “shampoo bars” don’t work with my hair as the high pH of soap seems to very negatively affect my hair. That’s why I’ve never posted one. I may try to find someone who does successfully use them to do a guest post on my blog sharing their recipe. I think those sorts of bars work best on people with thicker hair than mine.
I’ve been using this homemade conditioner that I think is just as good as any store-bought conditioner. To minimize plastic waste, I store it in silicone travel tubes and reuse them after running them through the dishwasher and then rinsing through with alcohol between uses.
To keep my hair nourished and curly, I use a co-wash for cleaning. I’m trying to perfect the recipe (based on the conditioner recipe + surfactant) so that I can proudly share it on the blog. While my latest attempts are working well for me, I’m not 100% ready to confidently share it quite yet.
So, I guess the long answer to your question is that I don’t have any shampoo recipes on the blog yet, but I’m definitely studying some options so that I can provide choices for a variety of needs/hair types. Stick around, I’ll get there eventually! 🙂
I can’t get my oil/Lyell mixture thick! I mixed it with a hand mixer for like 10 mins. It never reached mayonnaise thickness and I gave up and poured it into a mould… will it still work?? :-/
Hi Casey,
Most likely- yes!
If you at least made it to the beginning stages of “trace,” you’ll be fine. It’s not always obvious, and that can be affected by certain oils (olive oil is slower to get to an obvious trace), the temperature outside (takes longer when colder), etc.
If you didn’t get into the obvious stages of trace, it may take longer for it to set, so don’t give up if it isn’t solidifying as quickly as I’ve said in the post. You may need to give it a few days more days to set before unmolding.
Thanks so much Tracy. How long will it be for curing ? And thanks for posting this soap diy tutorial
Hello,
You’re welcome.
A month of curing time is ideal to help it dry and harden.
Thank you so much for this post! Does the water have to be hot to mix the lye or does it get hot when the two are mixed? Just clarifying since it says to let the mix cool before adding to the oil.
thank you!
Hi Teresa,
The water heats up when you mix it with the lye. It’s the chemical reaction that takes place that heats up the mixture and gives off fumes. That’s why it’s best to work outside or in a well-ventilated area if you can.
I should also mention that I haven’t found the temperature to be important (I’ve experimented a lot with cold lye, hot lye, cold oils, etc. 🙂 ), but I say to let it cool so you don’t burn yourself. 😉
Awesome thank you! I am so excited for all of my supplies to arrive to make my first batch!
Great! Good luck! I look forward to hearing how it goes. 🙂
Hi, I had so much fun making this recipe! Thank you so much for posting! I do have a question. My soap has been curing for 3 days now and I just noticed some pale green spots on the top. Have you ever seen that? I’m afraid it could be mold. Do you think they will disappear as it dries?
Hi Betsy,
No, I haven’t had that happen, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it quite yet. Are you able to place the soap in a well-ventilated area that is on the drier side?
Do you see condensation forming on your soap?
You could spray the top of the soap with rubbing alcohol. If your soap is pretty solid already, you can gently rub off the alcohol and see if the spots are removed as well. You can always gently scrape off the top layer of your soaps before using too. (Profesional soap producers often use machines to polish their soaps by gently taking off the thin top layer. I’ve seen soap scrapers for sale for the home crafter to help shape the soaps and get them looking nice in the end too. 🙂 )
Soap has a high pH which normally keeps microbes away, but if water starts condensing on your soaps, I suppose that it would be possible for mold to form on that water. It shouldn’t affect the soap itself, though.
It may also be a reaction with something you added to the soap. Where you playing with adding exfoliants and other additives to your soap?
Hi Tracy, No condensation. I tried the rubbing alcohol but no luck. I cut through the bar length wise and it appears that the spots are all throughout the bar. I didn’t add anything special to the soap. I bet there was some residue in the bowl that it reacted with. I’ll wash the bowl really well and try again, thanks!
Hi Betsy,
That’s really weird. I’ve never had that happen or heard of it happening. What sort of bowl were you using? Lye can react with some metals.
Do you have a pic you could send to tracy@thethingswellmake.com?
I’d like to see if we can figure out the problem before you try again to prevent the same issue from recurring! (Any potential issues can also help other readers!)
Just a thought, but I read on other blogs that if you use old ingredients that you can get spots on your soap.
Hi Alex,
Thanks for your idea! I have found that using older oils that soaps are more prone to orange spots, but the green spots intrigue me. I can’t remember if Betsy set me pictures and if we resolved the problem or not. A search through my inbox has me think that the answer is no. (I have resolved a few other soap issues that way.)
Thank you for this well explained and easy to understand post. I have 2 failed attempts behind me, but still have the urge to try. Hopefully I can tell you about my success in a month or two lol
Hi Lone,
I’m sorry to hear that.
Do you have a link to or are you able to share one of the recipes you’ve tried?
Maybe we can pinpoint what the problem was.
I really hope this works out well for you. As long as you have the right ingredients, and are able to measure them accurately, it really is a simple project. Of course if there are issues with one of your ingredients, or your scale, or you are following a bad recipe, then, well, of course things can get complicated. 😉
Love love love this post! Finally a soap recipe that has been explained well, that has thoughtfully answered my concern and fears, and has FINALLY convinced me to give it a try, wish me luck! Thanks so much!
Hi Nathalie,
I’m so happy to have helped! Good luck, and let me know if you have any issues along the way. 🙂
Hi Tracy, I am wondering if you know what makes soap melt away when lathering? Would your soap be improved by milling? I haven’t tried your recipe yet, that’s for next weekend. I’m really excited about it since I am one of the folks who got scared of soap making and never tried. I bought some lovely goat’s milk soap that melted so fast I could hardly make myself use it. The good news is that it inspired me to try your recipe.
Thanks, Tracy,
Hi Sarah,
How long a soap lasts can depend on a number of factors. It’s mostly dependent upon the amount of water in the soap, but it can also depend upon the oils/fats used to make the soap.
When you say milling, I’m assuming that in a home setting you’d really be re-batching the soap, meaning you’d cut it up, melt it down and pour it into a mold again. To be honest, I don’t think that would help a soap last longer. In fact, you’d probably need to add more water to it to make it workable. Even then, you normally end up with a “rustic” looking soap because it’s difficult to get it into a mold without adding a lot of water, which really defeats the principle of melting it down in the first place.
This soap uses coconut oil, which normally gives a hard bar of soap as do other solid fats. Olive oil gives a softer bar of soap that hardens with time. So, this soap really benefits from a longer cure time if you are looking for a really hard bar of soap. You could also potentially use a bit less water when making the soap. Hot processing the soap is another option as it would help evaporate some of the water. I personally hate the hot process method myself and see no other benefit to using it. It’s messy and usually doesn’t make soaps that are as nice and smooth because it basically works the same way as re-batching the soap would.
I find that this soap lasts a long time, much longer than soaps made with other vegetable oils. That said, if that’s really important to you, you may want to choose soaps made with more solid fats like animal fats, coconut oil, butters, etc. Keep in mind that the different oils will also change the properties of the soap. Olive oil is nice and conditioning, whereas coconut oil can be drying.
Would it be okay to use pomace olive oil instead of extra virgin?
Hi Teodora,
I ran it through the lye calculator, and that’s fine. The original recipe is 7% superfatted, and with the pomace, it will be slightly less than that, but still is in a good range.
I’m a little nervous now, but I’m going to make some soap this spring. How much of the scented oils, like lavender or Jasmine etc… do you incorporate?
Hi Margaret,
They usually say to use up to around 2% of the recipe, but, to be honest, I never really measure it out. I go by my nose. Because EO’s aren’t as potent or long-lived as fragrance oils, I usually add just a tiny bit more than where I think smells good. (So I add some and mix and smell, then add some more, and mix and smell again.)
Not very technical, but I think it’s the easiest best way to do things because some EO’s are more potent than others.
Hi, I’m nervous to try the Easy Basic Beginner Soap so I want to clarify the recipe – when you give the recipe in grams, are you referring to the weight or liquid measure? Also, the coconut oil, is that melted or solid? TIA
Hi Elizabeth,
All measurements are done by weight so that they are more precise.
It’s easier to mix the oils together if you melt the coconut oil first or are working at a temperature where the coconut oil is already melted, but I’ve tried blending the olive oil with the solid coconut oil (to prove that it was possible when people tried to tell me you needed a specific temperature to make soap) 😉 and it worked just fine that way too.
Is there a better way to melt the coconut oil? Or could I literally just stick it in the microwave and be fine? Thank you so much for sharing your experience. This will be my very first time trying to make soap and I’m both nervous and excited.
Hi Heather,
Don’t worry too much about it. There’s no need to complicate things. You can definitely just use the microwave or whatever is easiest for you. I mostly make soap in the spring and summer, so I rarely even have to melt the coconut oil.
Some places tell you that you need to worry about specific temperatures, but I haven’t found that to be the case. I’ve even just blended the solid coconut oil with the olive oil before (as an experiment) and that worked fine. The warmth from the reaction of the lye with the water finished melting it.
I wouldn’t recommend doing that your first time just because with a really cool solution the reaction will take longer- which may be worrysome for a first time soaper, but my point was that it’s a fairly forgiving process.
Hi, how low can I leave the lye mix before anything happens to it? I have the lye but I don’t have the oils so I am going to buy them. Any chance that I can make the lye mix in advance and leave it for 2-3 days? Thanks!
Hi Deanna,
To be honest, I’m not sure, but I’d wait. It’s much more dangerous having lye solution around than it is to have lye granules. It’s a quick and easy mix, and you can really use it immediately, so there isn’t really a benefit to making it in advance. (I leave it for several minutes before using it, but that’s only because I want to make sure it’s fully dissolved, and because it is really hot to work with and gives off fumes when you first mix it.)
Thanks. Is there any way I can speed up the curing process? Also, is there anything that I can do to make the soap more on the cleansing side and a little more sudsy?
Hi Deanna,
While you can’t really speed up the curing process, it isn’t 100% mandatory to wait out the whole month. After a couple of days, there isn’t really any lye leftover anymore in a recipe that is superfatted like this one. The curing process time allows the soap to dry and harden and just improve in quality.
Some people hot process their soap (cook the mixture before pouring it into molds) with the mistaken idea that hot-processed soap can be used immediately. While it is true that the saponification process will have completed before you pour it into the mold, and that the heat will help evaporate some of the water, both soaps benefit from the curing period.
That isn’t to say that you can’t use them immediately, but they will be better with time. You could use slightly less water to help reduce the drying time, but know that other chemical processes continue to take place in your soap over the month(s) after having made it, so it will still be in a process of change.
To make the soap more cleansing/sudsy, you can add more coconut oil, reducing the amount of olive oil. To do that correctly, you’d need to run the recipe through a lye calculator to see how much lye you would need for whatever new ratio of oils you’d be wanting to use.
I have a Easy Homemade Laundry Soap From Scratch, For Beginners!100% coconut oil soap recipe up on the blog that is meant for general cleaning and is especially good for removing stains for laundry.
Thank you for the recipe. Have you tried any with honey?
Hi Teresa,
I’ve been planning on trying one with honey for a long time, but I actually haven’t tried it yet.
I want to make a goats milk honey soap for the blog. I have a friend begging me for it. My plan is to make it when the weather starts to get nice again. It’s not like I can’t make soap inside, but I guess I’ve always gotten used to making soap in the spring and summer and love making it on my porch as an excuse to get outside. 🙂
I’ve been studying and learning more about other natural surfactants this winter.
I will try your method
I like to make soap at home
Thank you for your receipe
You’re very welcome! I hope it works well for you!
hi tracy!!! Loving this easy soap-making recipe but may i ask how do you know how much oil to put in the lye solution, and the different kinds of oils you used how do you know the ratio between them??
Hi Nalisha,
I’m not sure I full understand your question. Let me try to answer it to clarify things.
The lye solution uses the lye amount and the water amount listed in the recipe. It doesn’t use oil.
You then add that lye solution to the mixture of oils (listed with their amounts in the recipe).
It is done by weight in the amounts listed.
Does that help, or did I misunderstand your question?
Do you have to melt the coconut oil 1st?
Are these all measured on the digital scale?
Hi Maisie,
Yes, I always use a digital scale for soap. You need your measurements to be precise to get the soap to come out just right. Too many oils for the amount of lye, and you could end up with a nicely conditioning bar at first, but could also end up with a really soft bar of soap that goes rancid and that doesn’t give much lather. Too much lye for the oils you have and you’ll end up with a harsh soap with lye leftover in it. It normally burns your skin when you use it, but may be OK for cleaning.
In the past, they didn’t have scales, so they had to rely on other methods to get rid of the excess lye. They would boil the whole mixture in water and do other things to purify it out. With a scale, this becomes much easier, and less messy. 😉
Oops- I forgot to answer the first question!
Well- yes and no…
It’s much easier to combine the oils and the lye if you melt the coconut oil (or make this at temperatures where it is already liquid). That said, I’ve done experiments with making soap when the coconut oil is still solid and you can make soap just fine that way. What I did was to combine the solid coconut oil with the olive oil using an immersion blender. Doing that first makes sort of a solid liquid. I then very carefully mixed the lye mixture with the oils by hand when the lye mixture was still pretty warm. The warmth of the lye and the reaction with the oils itself finishes melting the coconut oil.
I’d still recommend melting the coconut oil briefly first, to make it easier to work with, but you don’t absolutely have to do it. My soap turned out just fine when I used solid coconut oil. 😉
I love this recipe. Its very easy to follow. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Irene!
I hope it goes well for you!
Wau nice article, I also love making soap.
Thanks, Simona. 🙂
Yeah, it’s a great hobby!
OMG! Thank you for such an easy, very detailed, but to the point recipe. I purchased my first few bars of homemade soap from a Natural Hairshow and have been wanting to make my own. I too have purchased the lye and it has been on the shelf for about a month. I am so happy to see your article and can’t wait to make mine. I have Palm Oil that I would like to use with the Olive Oil and Coconut Oil. Can either the oils above be divided to include the Palm Oil?
Hi Eileen,
I’m so happy to be able to help you! Making soap can be a lot of fun.
It’s fine to add some palm oil, but you’d have to run the final recipe through a lye calculator to make sure you’d still need the same amount of lye for the new oil combination.
I can help walk you through the process if you like. Here’s a good, easy lye calculator to use. If you tell me around how much palm oil you’d like to add or substitute, I can help you figure out the new recipe.
You could, for example, add another 100g of palm oil, or switch out 100g of the olive oil for 100g of palm oil. Either of those should make a decent soap- but, we’d have to run the numbers through the calculator to see how much lye is needed for either of those combinations.
Hi, I was wondering if you have to use distilled water? Thank you
Hi Shamarie,
In short- no, you don’t have to use distilled water. The first times I used either tap or bottled water and didn’t have any problems. The problem with not using distilled water is that not everyone has a decent filtered water to begin with. I was getting comments from people using well water or other hard water types in which weird things were happening to the soap. Any impurities can affect the quality of the soap and how long it lasts. Because distilled water is normally very cheap, and I have it on hand for recipes like homemade lotions where it is a lot more important to use only distilled water, I now only use distilled water when making soap. I also always suggest people use distilled water to avoid any problems that may arise due to using a poor quality water. Many people use this recipe as their first soap recipe, so I want to ensure their success as best as I can. I try to eliminate any potential barriers to achieving a perfect soap. 🙂
To add to this, the last time I made this soap, I used a homemade floral water that I had obtained from lavender. In the past, I had used floral waters in the water portion of the recipe with a lot of success. The last time, though, I have to admit that my final soap turned a brownish color with time, and began smelling off. Due to that, I now actually want to redo my video and get rid of the part about using floral waters. I think they can work well, but I think for a beginner soap perhaps people should stick to adding in fun additives at the end, rather than play too much with the main ingredients of the soap itself. There are just too many variables that can throw things off, and one should learn the process and know the recipe and how it normally turns out before trying to make too many changes.
Do you know if this could be used for hair and body shampoobar? Thanks ☺
Hi Sisse,
This is a modified Castile soap, and some people use Castile soap in their hair without any problems, and many say they actually love it. I personally have never found any bar soaps to work well with my hair, not even the supposed “shampoo bars.” So, it really depends on your hair and the results you are looking for. The high pH of soap in general causes issues for many people. That said, to keep my hair on the curly side, even most shampoos don’t work well in my hair. They end up drying it and keeping the top layers straight over the curly layers underneath.
I often actually use my homemade conditioner as a conditioning cleanser of sorts, but I occasionally do need to strip with some sort of surfactant. I’m working on formulating some natural shampoos in the coming year. (My plan is to take a course in a couple of weeks that teaches more about formulating with natural surfactants- the sorts of cleansers used in Shampoos.)
So- to make my long answer a bit shorter- you’d have to try it and see if you are one of the people who likes using soap in your hair or not. This is a pretty mild soap, so it’s a decent one to try with. I don’t, but many do, and you may be one of them. 😉
Hi Tracy
I have enjoyed making my first batches of soap!
They look great! I cut and cured them for over a month and have started using them and they lather up well.
The only thing I have found when using the soap and leaving it in a dish, the soap forms a gel type consistancy (look and feel) to it.
It still keeps it’s shape, and is solid in the centre. Just a gel on the outside of the soap.
Is this normal? Suggestions what I may have done wrong?
Sorry hope this makes sense.
Hi Sue,
I don’t think you did anything wrong. It is probably just the moisture where you’re keeping it that is allowing it to gel on the outside. If you can find a way to allow it to dry more thoroughly between uses, like with a soap dish with better draining or something like that, it should harden up again.
Homemade soaps naturally have glycerin in them as one of the natural byproducts of the soap making products. The glycerin is nice for your skin, and naturally absorbs moisture. I’m going to guess that it’s also what’s giving you the gel-like appearance.
Is your soap otherwise hard all around before you get it wet?
If you are noticing a difference in the appearance of the outer layers of the soap all of the time, it could be due to a partial gel phase occurring in your soap. This can happen depending on how you insulate the soap and depending upon the temperature of the soap when you insulate it. It’s purely a cosmetic issue.
I hope my answer makes sense- feel free to continue to ask questions about it if I missed the mark. 😉
How do you know how much essential oil to add to soap?
Hi Jana,
I really just wing it. By now, I know that certain essential oils, like lavender for example, have a stronger scent that lasts longer than some of the others. Citrus oils smell nice, but the fragrance doesn’t last as long.
I usually go by scent, and add it to what I’d like- and then I add a bit more to account for the fading of the scent with time.
I know that isn’t a very specific answer, but it’s how I do it. 😉
hi, I just wanted to know if this recipe can be used to make herbal soap by adding for instance turmeric or sandalwood?
Hello Mohamed,
I’ve added turmeric before as a colorant. It adds a pretty yellow color to the soap.
I’ve never worked with sandalwood before. Is it added as a powder? It’s not something that I have experience with, but I can’t see why you couldn’t add it.
Thanks for posting this, it has helped convince me to try my hand at soap making! I have been learning the art of candle making recently and soap also seems like a fun project. I noticed the part of your post that mentions covering the soap with cloth to keep in heat while curing to improve the soap. I think this works because the increased heat will improve mixing and binding of scent oils to the rest of the soap. The same principle applies when curing scented candles. Also, have you tried using coffee instead of water? I was worried the acidity of the coffee might react with the lye…
Hi Chris,
They usually say that insulating the soap is to help get it to “gel,” which can give soaps a more vibrant color if you are working with pigments and such. I’m not really sure about the binding of the scent oils- that’s an interesting theory that I hadn’t heard before. It’s very possible.
To be honest, I haven’t noticed much of a difference when doing it either way, but I’ve never really done an experiment with having the same soap poured into 2 separate molds- one insulated and one not. Perhaps some day I’ll give it a try and will check on the potency of the fragrance in both.
As for the coffee…
I haven’t tried it, but I’ve read that it does work fine. You may want to make sure it’s very cold when mixing it with the lye to keep it from scorching. (Similar in idea to how I froze the goats milk before mixing it with the lye in my pumpkin spice soap.)
I have tried with chai tea before.
I’ve read that coffee doesn’t really give a coffee scent to the final soap, though. To get a coffee scent, you’ll probably want to add in some used coffee grounds and/or a coffee fragrance oil.
Can you translate the grams into oz.~ Sherrie
Hi Sherrie,
I just updated the recipe with the conversion to ounces. I used to have the conversion on the recipe, but it disappeared when I switched the app I use to share recipes. Thanks for the heads up that it was missing. 🙂
If you click on “Convert units” in the ingredient section of the recipe, it should switch to ounces for you!
I love that you have included a video and make this process so easy! I am going to link this to my Christams Budget post as a homemade gift idea! Great post!
Hi Sarah,
Thanks so much!
I look forward to seeing your post. I love homemade Christmas gifts! They’re the best! 🙂
Thanks for this great website Tracy. I have been put off making cold process soap (starting out with melt and pour) because from what I have read it is difficult to add different oils and colours because the soap starts to set quickly once it hit the trace phase. From what you have said here, this is not the case, is that right?
Hi Mel,
I personally haven’t found that to be the case. It really depends more on the type of soap you are making and which oils you use. If you were making a soap with mostly coconut oil, you wouldn’t have as much working time.
Soaps with mostly olive oil like this one, on the other hand, usually give you a lot longer working time.
That’s why I chose this recipe for my beginner soap. It may take a bit longer to reach trace, but it’s a lot more forgiving in that you have time to play with the recipe. My laundry soap recipe, which is 100% coconut oil, gets hard very quickly, and you actually should probably cut it within a few hours because it gets to brittle and hard that it’s hard to cut the next day! It’s an easy recipe- and super quick, but definitely doesn’t have a long working time! This soap is completely different from that, and you can wait a few days to cut the bars.
So, I guess my long answer is it totally depends on the soap. 😉
Hi Tracy,
I have just made your basic beginner soap and am very pleased with the results. I now have some Santa shaped orange soap and some orange and poppy seed bars that should be cured in time for Christmas! Thanks so much for your encouragement and this great website!
Melanie
Tried this soap today so excited to see how it turns out. I always price out my products when i make it and this is the numbers I got from my supplies.
Cost Item Size Price Price Per oz
Extra Virgin Olive Oil 500g 3.67 Extra Virgin Olive Oil 33.8oz 6.99 0.21
Coconut Oil 100g 1.31 Coconut Oil 1gallon 47.54 0.37
Lye 80g 1.36 Lye 32oz 15.47 0.48
Lavender Essential Oil 10g 4.40 Lavender Essential Oil 30ml 12.99 .44 a ml
Total Cost 10.74
Hi Diana,
Thanks for the numbers- that may help others.
I’m lucky to live in an area where I can get super cheap olive oil- so I’m able to save a bit of money there. 🙂
I hope you enjoyed the project and that it turned out well for you!
Can’t wait to try this!!
Every other recipe I’ve looked at looks super complex but this seems perfect.
Few questions – Can I replace the olive oil (or parts of it) with hemp oil?
How do you clean the supplies after you’re done? Can you just wash them with normal soap and alcohol to make sure no lye is left on them?
Hi Veera,
While you can switch out some of the olive oil for hemp oil, you’d have to run the new formulation through a lye calculator first. Different oils need different amounts of lye. Keep in mind that different oils also have different properties, so it would change the soap. Olive oil is probably the only liquid oil that makes a decent bar of soap on its own, and is fine to use in large quantities. Most other liquid oils should be used in small percentages in a soap because they tend to make soft bars of soap that may go rancid quickly. (That isn’t directed towards hemp oil- just a warning of what can happen with a lot of the liquid oils.)
I mostly just rinse off my supplies when I’m done. You have, after all, made soap. The supplies will suds up and be pretty clean afterwards. Not enough lye should be left after making soap to bother you in any way, but if you are at all worried about it, you can rinse with vinegar to neutralize it afterwards.
Keep in mind that lye is used in food making- like for curing olives and making the crust on pretzels and sometimes bagels. It is a strong base that can burn you if you aren’t careful, but you don’t have to treat it like a super toxic chemical- just treat it with respect! 😉
Hi Tracy
I just found you page an I really love it
I have a question can I add an active charcoal in that mixture an I s there any kind of oil like sun flower I can use instead of olive oil because it’s very expensive in my country n please what is the measure of the oil thanks in advance
Hi Suzan,
Yes, you can definitely add in some activated charcoal. One of my friends tried it with this recipe, and really loved the final soap. She’s made it several times.
As for the sunflower oil- most of the lighter oils like sunflower oil make a very poor quality soap. You can use them in small quantities in a recipe, to offset some of the cost, but most of the soap should be made with solid oils like (lard, tallow, or coconut oil) or olive oil.
The problem with switching up oils in a recipe is that the properties of the final soap complain completely too. Plus, any changes that you make need to be run through a lye calculator first because different oils use different amounts of lye.
When I first started making soap, it was very difficult and expensive to find coconut oil here in Spain. I decided that by making it myself, I was still saving money. Nowadays it’s easy to find here and a lot less expensive than it used to be.
I have a 100% coconut oil soap on the blog, if you just want to try making soap. It’s a lot different type soap, and I use it mostly for cleaning and laundry, but for those uses, it’s a really great soap.
I LOVE this soap! I am fortunate enough to have been gifted a few bars by the creator herself, Tracy and now she’s got me hooked.
So soooo sorry, Tracey, about addressing you in a wrong name.
Haha, Nano,
No worries! My sister’s name is Amy. 🙂
When using something like beeswax, or any solid oil or fat, I do end up heating my oils and I melt the beeswax into the other oils. You can still do a cold process soap even though you have heated the oils.
Just add the hot lye solution to the hot oils. You don’t need to do that over a heat source, or use a hot process method, you can continue as normal once you’ve mixed them together.
I hope that makes sense!
Hello Amy!
I do my cold process soap recipes, by adding hot lye solution to my room temperature oils/fats.
I would like to add beeswax pastilles to my recipes. How can I do that? When can I add it into my recipe.
Please advise.
Thank you so much
Hi,
This looks like a great recipe, but I was wondering about adding more/different essential oils like tea tree or additives like activated charcoal. Would I have to adjust the amount of the other ingredients in proportion with the essential oils or could I just add a few drops to the recipe as is? Also how much essential oil should I use? I know it changes based on the type of essential oil you’re using. Thanks!
Hi Jane,
You can add your essential oils and additives like activated charcoal without any problems.
I usually just use enough essential oil to give the scent I’m looking for, or just slightly more because it will lose some scent with time.
I think the standard rate normally mentioned is .5-1oz per pound of oil.
If you were to use a lot of extra oil, eventually your recipe would result in a soft bar of soap that could go rancid more quickly. That isn’t really a danger with essential oils, though, because of their expense and potency, there isn’t really a danger of you adding large amounts of oil to the recipe.
Activated charcoal is a great addition to soap, and makes a beautiful black bar of soap. I have a more complicated recipe for an activated charcoal facial soap that uses it, and I really like how it turns out.
Hi, my name is Diane,thanks for sharing, I have passion for soap making but I have never made any. I will try my first by December . is what I really want to do for living.
Hi Diane,
I hope it goes well for you! I have a few soaps that are based on this one to help you learn new techniques without changing things up too much. The pumpkin spice soap lets you see how to work with goats milk and also how to play with swirling in some spices and things.
I also have some liquid soap recipes. I think liquid soap might actually be the most profitable as it seems to be sold quite expensively and not as many people make it.
Good luck, and I’d love to hear how it goes! 🙂
Hi Adéle. Im a newbie at soapmaking. Could i use coconut as as the larger amount of oil Nd olive as the lesser. As in yiyr recepe? 500g coconut and 100g olive oil
Thanks????
Hi Adéle,
You can make the switch, but you’d have to run it through a lye calculator first- as each oil uses a different amount of lye.
I just ran it through one, and for a soap with 500g coconut oil and 100g olive oil, you should use 228g water and 99.9g lye.
Keep in mind that the soap will be completely different from the recipe I’ve shared, and will make an effective cleaning soap, but won’t be as conditioning of a soap. I have a 100% coconut oil soap that I use as a laundry soap recipe. When I make that soap, it hardens up pretty quickly, so you definitely won’t have as much time to play with the soap (for adding in colorants, exfoliants, etc.) You’ll also need to cut it sooner- it gets pretty hard and brittle very soon.
I read and read – for about five years – before I actually made soap. This was the first recipe I tried. Soaped way hot, because I was unaware our regular thermometer had been destroyed the night before (cooking accident). It traced fast, and I poured at thick trace. This was great for me, because I am NOT a crafter and HATE physical detail work, like waiting for a slow trace recipe.
After about a five week cure, I finally used and enjoyed some. Gave some to a like-minded “hippie” friend to try (she was aware I was new, and of the dangers potentially present.)
She’s a tie-dye marvel. When I saw her a week later, she wanted more. Turns out, this is the only bar that gets the dye off her hands well! So, while I have made a dozen other recipes in that time, this has made the regular line-up. I added jojoba beads and orange EO to the next batch, just to increase the ability to get all the dye from cuticles and under nails. Apparently, it is tie-dye perfection.
Thanks so much for giving me my final kick in the pants with this easy and thorough recipe – I now give sample bars to all the dye artists at shows for marketing. My first and easiest recipe, with no fancy base oils or luxury EO. So awesome!
Hi Katie!
Hahaha- Awesome comment!
That’s so interesting! Now I’m going to have to try that, as I’ve been known to tie dye some things occasionally too! 🙂
I even have some jojoba beads sitting around that I’ve been meaning to use somewhere or other. I’ve been thinking of making some sort of facial wash with it, but perhaps I need to make a tie dye dye removing soap instead. 🙂
Thanks for this. Just made my first batch. I changed the recipe slightly. I used Shea butter instead of coconut oil and used half olive oil half almond oil. It got to trace state pretty easily and is now sitting in the mold. I am curious what the change in recipe well do. But so far so good. Really exciting that it was so simple.
Hi Anja,
Soap recipes aren’t like food recipes in which you can easily switch out oils and get similar results. Certain oils behave a certain way in a soap, and you also need different amounts of lye for certain oil mixes.
In your case, to make a soap that uses 100g shea butter, 250g olive oil, and 250g almond oil, to get a 5% superfat (the amount I used in my soap), you would use 77.3g lye rather than 80g.
Your soap will be closer to 1% superfat- which shouldn’t be an issue because you’ve used oils that are highly conditioning.
The problem I see instead is that you used a very large quantity of sweet almond oil. Almond oil normally shouldn’t be used at higher than 20% of a soap recipe. Without the coconut oil to add suds and cleansing ability to your soap, my guess is that it will be a soft bar of soap that won’t be a very good cleaner.
At least you’ve learned the process, and have a better idea about what to expect when making soap.
I hope that your soap is at least usable.
Hi Tracy.
I rely enjoyed the section. can you send the comprehensive soap making processed of different soaps and other cosmetics to my mail. I would love to go into business with you here in Nigeria.
Hi Tracy,
thank you for informative and easy to follow guide for us beginners. Will try it this weekend 😉
Hi Hrvoje,
I hope it goes well for you. Let me know if you have any problems along the way!
This is the best easy to follow recipe. I’ll definitely try this.
Thanks, Felicity!
I hope it goes well for you and that you have fun with it! 🙂
I just made my first batch of soap from your recipe! It’s curing right now. Thank you for writing this out in an easy, step-by-step process.
Hi Tove,
Great!
You’re so very welcome! I’m so glad it worked out for you. 🙂
Hi Tracy, thank you so much for this recipe. I just made my first batch of soap ever and it was fun, easy and nowhere near as dangerous as I thought (I still used gloves and goggles though, and I mixed the lye outdoors). I used jasmin oil instead of lavender and my kitchen smells absolutely wonderful. Tomorrow I want to make some more soap with different scents, so that I have a nice stash of home made gifts ready for christmas. Thanks!
Yay! Anita!
Thanks for letting me know! 🙂
I’m so glad it worked out for you. Now that you’ve started, it’s hard not to get addicted.
This is the perfect time to get started on making some great Christmas gifts. 😉
thanks
can i use glycerin instead of coconutoil
Hi Amira,
No, glycerin doesn’t work the same way as coconut oil does.
You have to switch out an oil for an oil, and even then you have to be careful because different oils need different amounts of lye for forming soap. You’d have to run the new recipe through a lye calculator to make sure it was a viable recipe. You also have to take into consideration that certain oils make better soaps than others, and some oils shouldn’t be used at high percentages of the recipe.
I talk a little bit more about how glycerin can be used in soap making in both the liquid soaps I shared with you earlier, and the glycerin soap recipe that I just posted yesterday.
If you are having a hard time finding coconut oil, you can make a pure castile soap. I made one several weeks ago, and am just waiting for the soaps to cure little more before taking pictures and posting the recipe on the blog. 🙂
thank you for your work
i have aquestion can i use KOH instaed of NAOH
Hi Amira,
KOH is what is used for making liquid soaps. It won’t make a hard bar of soap.
If you’re looking to use some KOH for soap making, I’d recommend taking a look at my recipes for making a liquid castile soap or making a liquid coconut oil soap. 🙂
NaOH is usually a lot cheaper and easier to find (often can be found cheap in the drain cleaning section of supermarkets), so if you have your heart set on making bar soap, I’d try to find some NaOH.
Good luck!
Just tried this. Never reached trace… What did I do?! Or not do?! haha
Hi Claire,
I’m sorry to hear you have had issues with the recipes. Without knowing exactly what ingredients you used, or how you did things, exactly, I can’t really help.
My first thing to check would be the quality of the ingredients. I’ve heard that some people have used a lye that wasn’t 100% sodium hydroxide. I’ve also heard people say that they later found out that the olive oil that they had bought wasn’t 100% olive oil. I find the quality of my soap is best when I use extra virgin olive oil, but don’t always use it. Here in Spain I can be pretty sure that it IS 100% olive oil, at least. Using a different oil will completely change the recipe.
As for other issues…
I’ve had one person later tell me she found her issue to be a scale that was calibrated incorrectly! I would have never even thought of that.
Have you watched the video?
Did your lye heat up and get cloudy when you mixed it with the water? (If not, then there could be issues with your lye.)
Did it get thick at all?
In my video, my mixture got as thick as you can see after less than 5 minutes of mixing with the immersion blender.
I wish I could think of other possible issues.
If you can think of any other clues that could be helpful (anything that went differently from mine at any point of the recipe), I can try to help you troubleshoot!
Thanks so much! It did end up thickening to an extent, but definitely not “trace.”
I just poured it into molds and it’s definitely hardening (it’s been 12+ hours now). The oils are definitely good quality, but the lye is only 98% (however, it was cloudy and did heat up). Maybe it’s the lye though?
Also, I didn’t use an immersion blender…I used a hand mixer. After, some googling I learned that could be the problem?
Hi Tracy,
I’m going to try this recipe, I love the simplicity of it..
Is there no need to warm the olive & coconut oils??
Lyn
Hi Lyn,
There is no need to warm the olive and coconut oils. If you are making this in the winter, and the coconut oil is solid, you can warm it enough to make it a liquid so that it is easier to work with, but even that isn’t necessary. I’ve blended the solid coconut oil with my immersion blender before to mix it well with the olive oil before adding the lye. The warm lye mixture will help finish melting it.
I do think it’s easier, if it’s your first time making soap, that you begin with liquids so that you don’t confuse the solid oil with the thickening “trace” stage.
I actually recorded myself working on making this soap yesterday, and will work on getting a video up soon so that people have a better idea of what they are looking for! 🙂
Hello Tracy
This is the first site I have found that gives a simple recipe that I could do and showing the amounts (bars of soap)
Thanks
Trish
Hi Trish,
I hope it goes well for you. If you have any questions along the way, feel free to send them my way. I’m happy to help.
No questions are dumb questions! 🙂
Hi Tracy. I have been wanting to try my hand at making soap for years! Like, over 10 years. But I’ve always been too chicken to try it. Last summer my husband and I bought the lye, the scale, and a bottle of distilled water. Except for the scale, they’ve been sitting in the garage all year long. Then a few days ago I came across your site and this basic soap recipe. It still took me a few days to get up the courage, but I did it! I made the soap today. I’ll let you know how it turns out, but I was too excited about having finally done it to wait to tell you. 🙂 Thanks for the recipe, the simplicity of which helped me find the courage to do it.
Hi Lianne!
I’m so excited you got the courage!
How’s the soap looking now?
It should look like soap by this point. 😉
It looks and smells terrific. I’ve been letting it dry out and have not used any of it yet, but some friends came to visit today, and they wanted to try it out. They said it was smooth and very nice to use. I am going to let it harden a little longer, but I’m very happy with it so far. Now that I’ve done it once, I’m itching to try again with some extra add ins. Thanks again for sharing.
Yay!
I’m so happy to hear that!
Yes, once you get started, it’s hard to stop experimenting. Ha!
My Kirchen is full of all sorts of soaps lately— soon some will find their way to the blog. 🙂
This may be a silly question but do you melt the oils and then measure them or just measure them straight out of the container. Also, do I need to heat my oils or just blend them?
Thank you!
Hi Amy,
No, it’s not a silly question.
Because you are using weight and not a volume measurement like cups, it doesn’t matter. You can weigh the oils before or after melting them.
When using oils like coconut oil in the winter, it’s a good idea to melt them to make things easier. It will also help you know the difference between when you have reached “trace” because your mixture will thicken. (If the oils are still solid, the mixture will already be thick, so it’s harder to tell, especially if you’ve never made soap before.)
Some people say that the oils and the lye mixture should be at the same temperature, or the reaction won’t take place and you won’t make soap.
I haven’t found that to be the case, though. I have many times used solid oils in the winter, that I haven’t bothered melting, and have added the hot lye solution to the cold, unmelted oils. (The lye mixture heats up on its own when you add the lye to water.) I’ve never had a problem reaching trace and making soap.
I personally don’t think it’s a big deal either way. It’s pretty forgiving.
Good luck!
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. No question is a silly question! 🙂
Hi Tracy,
I was wondering why you don´t mention temperatures in your recipe. I´ve read a lot of soap making books and all of them emphasize in the importance of having both oils/fats and lye in the same temperature range. Apparently this hasn´t been an issue for you. I´m intrigued…
Hi Gerard.
I’ve experimented a lot with this since at the beginning I got a sort of mean comment from somebody saying that the recipe wouldn’t work if you didn’t measure the temperature of the oils. At the time, I had never even heard about people heating up oils or anything like that. (I mean, this is supposed to be COLD process soap, right?) 🙂
As an experiment, I’ve even used the very warm, just-mixed lye solution with cold, solid coconut oil. (I needed to carefully use the stick blender to incorporate the liquid into the hard, solid oil. 😉 ) It was the heat of the lye solution that warmed up the coconut oil enough to melt it. The way I see it, once you blend it, it all has the same temperature. Ha!
But really, I’ve never understood why some people make such a big deal about the temperature. I’ve never once taken the temperature of my ingredients as far as I can remember, and I’ve never had any problems with it.
Perhaps, if you want to get fancy with colors and you want to bring your soap to a gel stage, you’d want to have everything heated to a certain temperature or something, but honestly, I can’t even begin to fathom why, otherwise, you’d need to be measuring the temperatures.
I kind of think that people like to unnecessarily complicate their lives. Maybe they want to make the idea of making soap sound more complicated than it really is so that people don’t start making their own. That would lessen the competition and mean there are more soap buyers out there to sell to. Most people aren’t afraid to bake a cake, but do seem to be intimidated by making soap. I do both, and find making a soap much easier than baking the cake. 🙂
Hi.. what is the superfat on this soap? when using most liqud oils i guess no more then 3-4%?
hi,
i have been looking for a simple recipe for a little while, and then came across your blog, fab, i am wanting to make soap using honey from my bees, what ingredient would i decrees to add the honey? and would i need to do anything in particular to the honey to make it mix evenly? would it separate when it sets? can i still add some essential oil to the mix with the honey such as lemongrass, sorry so many questions.
thank you
Hi Lorna,
It’s great to hear from you! You can never ask too many questions. 🙂
I love the idea of adding honey to your soap, but you do want to be careful and not add too much because the sugar in the honey can cause the soap to heat up too much. (You can read a bit about how I added molasses and goat milk to my pumpkin spice soap to get an idea of what I mean.
I think it’s usually suggested to add around 1 tsp. of honey to each pound of soap to keep things safe.
I’d actually think the easiest way to add the honey in would be to add it after you have reached trace, and then blend it in with the immersion blender. You can also add in whatever essential oils you want at the time. Since you’d be adding very little, you wouldn’t have to make much of a change to the recipe. You could slightly reduce the amount of water to compensate for the extra humidity, but don’t change any of the other ingredients! 😉
You shouldn’t have any problems with separation or anything, just make sure to not go overboard and blend it in well. I’ve been meaning to do a honey soap myself for the blog soon. I had a few fun ideas for styling it, so keep tuned if you want to see it. Good luck & never be afraid to ask questions along the way!
thank you, just about to harvest some honey so will be having a go soon, i will let you know how i get on.
I love love love this! Thank you SO MUCH! I’ve been looking into soap making for a few days now and my head was spinning. It all seemed so complicated! You have broken it down so well, it makes perfect sense now and I’ll be making a trip out tomorrow for all my ingredients. So excited. Thank you SO much!!!
I’m so happy to have helped you out, Rachel.
I know exactly what you mean about everything seeming so overwhelming. My goal is try to to make things a bit simpler. 🙂
If you have any problems along the way, just let me know. Good luck!
Hi, do you have a similar easy recipe and to do for hot soap making, I have been searching everywhere for simple and finally found you, thank you!!
Hi Wendy,
You can use the same recipe and do the hot process method, if that’s what you are referring to.
I’m a bit curious, though, as to why you would want to use the hot process method. I find it a lot messier, more complicated, and ends up with a more “rustic” (aka. uglier) 🙂 bar of soap.
A lot of people push the hot process method because they say you can use the soap immediately. That is true in a way because the saponification takes place before you pour your soap into molds. The problem with that is that you have a thick, gloopy soap to pour into the molds, so the finally soap isn’t as smooth and pretty.
Cold process soap like I show in my recipe doesn’t finish the saponification before pouring into molds, so it’s a lot easier to pour. The saponification process completes over the next couple of days.
Either soap truly benefits from a waiting period to dry out and just get better overall, but could be used successfully after a couple of days.
If you do want to make this a hot process soap, all you have to do is cook it slowly in a crock pot while mixing, until the process has completed. (That can be determined by “zap” tests, checking pH, etc. I personally never use the hot process method myself, though, because I find it messy and see no benefit. I save my crock pot for making liquid soaps.)
Hi,
I didn’t read all the comments but your soap seems simple enough to begin with. All that I have read has made it sound hard not making it a fun filled experience. Thank you.
Have a question on the water. What kind of water do I use? Tap, Distilled, Spring , ect. Thank you for your help and look forward to letting you know how my soap comes out.
Hello!
That’s actually a great question.
I always used to use tap water, but my water is softened and goes through a filter. I’ve never had any problems when using tap water. If your tap water has a lot of impurities or is quite hard, you can definitely consider choosing distilled instead to keep any impurities out. I’ve been making a lot of lotions lately, so I always have distilled water on hand and occasionally use that now too.
It’s not as important when making bar soap, but since distilled water is so inexpensive, you can definitely use it to keep on the safe side, especially if you are worried about the water where you are.
Hello!
I just made this recipe yesterday! I poured it into a 32 oz wax juice carton and it fit perfectly. I’ve since popped it out and cut it into some bars. I added lemon and lavender essential oils for scent (I’m not sure how much I added since my scale didn’t work- oops). The smell kind of hit you in the face in the beginning but it has since faded and I’m hoping it will continue to fade during the curing process. I also added a little turmeric for color at trace- I didn’t stir it very much and so it left little brown/orange dots throughout the soap which is very pleasant.
I’m very pleased! Everything has turned out well. Thank you!
😀
Hi Sarah,
I’m so happy it worked out well for you!
Yes, the essential oil scent will face with time. Some oils fade too much, so I’m sure it will all work out well.
Thanks so much for your comment. These sorts of comments make my day! 🙂
Hi , this is the simplest recipe I have found. Am so excited.. I make my own coconut oil so that is a plus for me..
I will let you know how it goes.. Thank you
Hi Eno!
Great! I’m glad you liked it. 🙂
I wish you the best of luck. Let me know if you have any questions along the way!
What are the purple beads in the soap of one of your pictures?
Hi Angie,
I think you’re probably referring to the lemon poppyseed soap.
I was playing around and added poppy seeds to a few of the bars for exfoliation.
I normally exfoliate with a cloth or a loofah, so it’s not that practical for me, but I did want to give it a try. 🙂
I was afraid it was going to be messy to use, but because you use soap little by little, it really wasn’t. Ha!
Using the seeds sounds like a good idea:) I will try it too.
~Angie
Great recipe. It works very well. Just a comment from my experience making soap in the past. Coconut oil can get expensive but for soap making, you don’t absolutely have to use refined coconut oil. Many of the wonderful qualities of coconut oil are lost in the refining process so I have always used unrefined coconut oil purchased in bulk from popcorn supply companies. It’s MUCH cheaper and every bit as good or better than store bought coconut oil.
Hi Pamela,
Thanks for the suggestion!
I pretty much always use virgin coconut oil since most coconut oils I’ve seen here in Spain run around the same price. So, I just use the same stuff for soap making that I use for food and other cosmetic uses. I’d never heard about buying from popcorn companies before, though. That’s really interesting, and something I’d have to look into to see if it would be available from those sorts of places here in Spain. 🙂
I have not made soap before and I am in Australia but here I think we have liquid lye not sure but what would the measurements be for that
Hi Nerrilee,
I’d be wary of a liquid lye as it most likely is a solution that isn’t 100% sodium hydroxide. In any case, I wouldn’t be able to determine how much would be needed of a liquid without knowing the concentration of the particular liquid in question. You’d have to make sure that the solution is indeed only sodium hydroxide and water, and then know the exact concentration to try to figure it out.
You should be able to find the powder/grain type, though. I’ve seen it pretty much all over the world where I have travelled, but I sadly haven’t made my way to Australia yet. I would love to visit! 🙂
In any case, I’m happy to try to help you if you need it.
I’ve tried this recipe twice, and both times the batches did not reach trace. It thickened a little, but no where near enough. Suggestions?
Hi Miranda,
There are a number of factors to how long it takes to reach trace.
This recipe actually takes a bit longer than some others, but on the other hand also has a long working time that gives you time to play with it.
With the cold weather now, you are probably working with colder ingredients and it will take longer to reach trace. If it got thicker and lighter like sort of a salad dressing or light mayonnaise, it may actually be enough. Did you pour the result into molds to see if they set after a day or two?
If the soap isn’t actually reaching even a light trace and isn’t setting at all, my guess is that something is off with one of the ingredients, and my first guess would be that it would have to do with something with the lye. Some people have told me that they later noticed that the lye they were using was either not 100% NaOH, meaning it was either in a mix with other ingredients, or it was the only ingredient, but diluted somehow to a different strength. Perhaps that happened to you? Ingredients have to be precise in soap making, and if the product isn’t 100% lye, even if you measure it well, in the end you aren’t adding the right amount.
It’s hard to know without being there what the problem is. I hope my guesses have helped you somehow.
Hi Tracy,
Thank you for your response. It turns out my scale was not calibrated correctly, meaning the ingredients were added unproportionally. Here’s to try number 3!
I’m so sorry to hear that, Miranda!
I really hope the third time’s the charm!! 🙂
Thanks for this post and recipe. I tried it at the weekend with my two daughters as a bit of a dad bonding session and it was great fun. Soap turned out beautifully and they can’t wait to use it in a few weeks. Its inspired them to want to get creative with some other soap recipes so looks like we’ve found a hobby we can share into their teenage years. Cheers.
Hi Simon,
I’m so happy to hear that!
Yes, it can get addicting. You’ll soon find yourself making face soaps, seasonal soaps, soap for the dog…
hahaha 🙂
Hi, I tried to make soap awhile ago with mixed results. Your recipe looks really easy. I’m going to try again. I’m in the process of collecting ingredients and supplies. I read your recipe for liquid soap, olive oil and coconut oil, and saw you used KOH. To simplify things, can I buy KOH and use it for making the cold pressed basic bar soap as well as the liquid soap? Also, I bought a less expensive stick blender years ago for soap making. It “broke” the first time I used it to make soap. The stick blender you recommend is waiting in my Amazon cart, along with both types of lye. Any thoughts would be apreciated. Thanks.
Hi AJ,
This recipe is pretty simple, so I hope it goes well for you. Liquid soap is a little bit tricker, so I’d suggest you stat with the bar soap first to get a bit of practice if you are planning on making both anyway.
KOH and NaOH behave differently when making soap. NaOH is used for bar soap while KOH is for liquid soap. You won’t end up with the same thing if you switch from one to the other, and you would need different amounts, too, to actually get a useful product. I did try using NaOH for a liquid soap once, adjusting the amounts, but it made a sort of messy soap. I’ve never tried the other way around so I don’t know what would even happen, but I wouldn’t suggest wasting the ingredients to try it. In any case, NaOH should be easier and more inexpensive to find. I buy mine at a local hardware store in the drain cleaner section. You just have to make sure that the lye you buy is pure NaOH.
As for the blender. I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m going to assume that you were doing the hot process method of soap where you heat it while blending? With this method, you should only be blending until the mixture gets creamy, so it shouldn’t strain the blender at all! If you are putting strain on the blender, you’re bending too long, and you will have a hard time pouring the soap into the molds.
When making liquid soap, you will be making a paste that will start to put a strain on the blender. I’d just say that you want to stop when you notice you’re using it too hard, and to switch to a wooden spoon or even a metal one if you feel you need something stronger like I did when I made the coconut oil based liquid soap.
I really hope that helps. I hope you enjoy it and that it goes well for you. Feel free to ask any questions you have along the way. I’m here to help!! 🙂
“rinse it off with vinegar rather than water!”
PLEASE! – This sentence needs to be updated/changed!
Water is Always preferred for rinsing lye from your skin.
Vinegar on top of a lye burn can actually make the burn worse.
Plenty of clean, cool water is what is needed for rinsing lye from your skin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lye
Sources recommend immediate removal of contaminated clothing/materials, gently brushing/wiping excess off of skin, and then flushing the area of exposure with running water for 15–60 minutes while contacting emergency services.
http://www.soapalooza.com/blog/2014/01/how-to-handle-a-lye-spill/
The number one reason you do not want to simply douse your Lye spill with vinegar is because of the massive exothermic heat that is discharged. This can cause extreme damage to skin!
Hi Jeanette,
Thank you so much for pointing that out!
I have immediately fixed that part of the post, and really appreciate your input.
I normally do a lot of research into almost everything I write within a post. Unfortunately, in that case I accepted the safety instructions of the book I was using without doing any further investigation. (Goes to show not everything you read in books is correct.) At first glance, it makes a lot of sense to want to neutralize the lye as quickly as possible to keep it from doing damage. That said, it also makes a lot of sense that the reaction between vinegar and lye would be a very strong one, especially when you consider how much heat is given off just by mixing lye with water.
I wish I had thought of that earlier, and questioned the advice I was given enough to do further investigation on my own.
I really appreciate you pointing it out to me. Hopefully nobody will need to deal with burns from lye spills, but if they do, I definitely wouldn’t want them to get hurt more by erroneous advice.
Hi Tracy,
I’ve now made three batches of this soap and all have turned out wonderfully. I even got crazy with my first batch and divided it in half and added a bit of cocoa to one half, colouring it to a nice dark brown. I tried to swirl the two together but I didn’t do a very good job. But, the end result it a two-tone soap bar that looks like it’s edible! It’s lovely. They are all curing right now. Thank you so much for the recipe. I will use it again.
Laurie
Hi Laurie,
Thanks so much for your comment!
I’m so glad that you like the recipe and that it’s been working well for you. I love hearing comments like this, and really appreciate you taking the time to write me! 🙂
hi, just wondering how much/big one serving is. Or how many soaps at the size of 5.5 x 5.5 x 1.8 can be made with one serving?
thanks 🙂
Hi Nick,
Just the other day I calculated this recipe to be around 30 fluid ounces.
Taking a look at your measurements, 5.5×5.5×1.8 (I’m assuming this is in inches?) should be around 55 cubic inches. Running that through a cubic inches to fluid ounces converter, I get around 30 fluid ounces.
So, if my calculations are correct, your mold should be very, very close to the amount of soap being made. You may want to have an extra tiny mold around for any excess soap that doesn’t fit, just in case.
Good luck and have fun!
Thank you so much, this helped a lot 🙂
You’re welcome! 🙂
Hello again! Another question… I understand your reason behind measuring in grams and have no problem doing that… my problem is in knowing how much product to purchase. Could you approximate the volume in fl. ounces so I can tell how much Olive Oil (for example) to purchase?
Thank you!
Hi Jackie,
I looked it up online, because I can’t really remember how much it was. I was thinking just over 2 US cups…
Anyway, it says that 500g of olive oil equals 18.5 fluid ounces. I hope that helps!
Hi there! I’m looking forward to trying your recipe. How much soap will this recipe make? Enough to fill a 42oz size mold? Approximately how many 4-5oz bars of soap does this recipe make? Thank you!
I was just calculating it out, and I get that the equivalents are around 18.5 liquid ounces olive oil, 3.7 l. ounces coconut oil, 7 l. ounces of water–
Without figuring in the other ingredients, I’m going to estimate that you’d end up with around 30 liquid ounces of soap.
So, I guess you’d get around 6 5oz bars of soap, if I calculated it correctly. 😉
Hi it’s me Jenny again….6 weeks later, after a long cure I finally tried my soap this morning. Now these past 6 weeks I moved on to HP keeping myself busy…..learning a lot each time. But I have to tell u when I tried this soap I really fell in love with it. Now, my 2nd batch I got braver and used lemon EO and dill. THE fragrence has faded a bit, but the texture, smoothness and bubbles are amazing!!!! I’M I bit inspired to go back to CP now that I see the smoothness and simplicity. Thanks for your simple recipee for an amazing soap and 1st few experiences in soap making!!
Hi Jenny,
I’m so happy you liked it.
I really love this soap and based my first soaps around it.
I’ve never understood why some people are so set upon using hot process for making soap. I really see no benefit to it, and to me it just makes the process more complicated and messy, and makes an uglier bar of soap to top things off.
People use the excuse that you can use the soap right away because the saponification process is finished before pouring the soap into the mold, but with cold process, it’s finished in a few days. In any case, neither soap is ideal until at least a couple of weeks have passed, so…
The only thing I use hot process for is to make liquid soaps. Perhaps you’d like to give those a try next. hahaha
I have both a liquid castile soap and a liquid coconut oil soap for you to try. Just saying. 😉
(It is slightly more complicated than this soap, but if you’ve already tried HP, it shouldn’t be a problem for you!)
Oh, I should say that the 2 soaps on my blog that are pretty much just fun versions of this soap are the pumpkin spice soap and the gingerbread soap— both perfect for the upcoming holidays!
Hi Tracy,
Thank you so much for such a helpful post. I am bracing myself for my first go at soap making and your recipe and instructions make it sound much easier than other sites!
I am really interested in using natural ingredients to colour my soaps. Can you recommend any ingredients that you frequently use to colour soaps please and how much you use?
I know some websites recommend spices to colour soaps eg turmeric for a yellow glow, but I worry that that might then stain my skin yellow!
Thank you in advance for your help.
Adelka
Hi Adelka,
You’re very welcome! I hope that you enjoy making soap as much as I do. 🙂
I’ve actually been working on a post about natural colors in soaps that should go live relatively soon. I do have some other posts that are supposed to go up first, though. I will say that turmeric gave an unexpected result for me and didn’t make a yellow soap, but instead a brown one.
So far, with my experiments, the colors in the soap, if intense enough, will turn the lather a certain color, but I’ve never had it turn my skin those colors. It really depends on the color you want your soap to be.
I think the prettiest was probably a light, bright orange that I got from achiote. It’s a natural colorant used often in Latin American cooking, so you can usually find it in ethnic stores or the ethnic section of a large supermarket, perhaps.
Most spices will look grainy in the soap, though, so you could also infuse them into the oils and strain them out to get a less rustic looking soap.
I’ll try to get my post up as soon as I can, so you can see the pictures of how certain colors turned out for me. I’ll also try to remember to come back here and comment when it’s up. 🙂
Hi, i made a nice soap using your guide but when i want to a soap making factory, a friend of mine gave me a little guide that if am making soap for Commercial purpose, its very very economical and easy and you can get many soaps with little ammount of oil by addin silcate, soder ask, castic soda (Lye) and Hardner, infact, i love it.
Hi Mohammed,
Thanks for your comment.
Yes, I’m sure commercial soap makers know all sorts of tricks to make soaps more economically.
Luckily for me, soap making is still a very frugal hobby. I don’t mind spending money on quality oils and other ingredients for my soaps, and I don’t worry about trying to cut down on their use because the homeamde soaps last so long. If I were selling as a big company commercially, though, I can understand why that would be very helpful.
I would like to know if in the pumpkin spice soap I could use shea butter instead of olive oil and if so, what amount of shea butter? I made this soap and I love the spice fragrance, but it just seems like all I mostly smell is the olive oil. Do you have any suggestions on an oil that smells better than olive oil? Thanks so much for posting this recipe!
Hi Tonya,
When I made the pumpkin spice soap, I have to admit that I was still in the beginning days of soap making, so I was sticking with the oils that I was most familiar with because using goat milk and pumpkin in a soap were all new to me, so I didn’t want to make too many changes to a process that I was comfortable with to that point.
One of the main reasons I kept this soap as is (I’ve been tempted to make a new version for people who want a less conditioning/more cleansing soap with more bubbles), was that I like how long this soap stays at the various stages of trace before becoming hard. That allows beginners the time they need to pour the soap without freaking out, and even allows for time to add fun things to the soap.
I can definitely look into adding another version of the soap to try after the other pumpkin spice soap. I’ve been doing a lot of soap experimenting since those soaps. Heck, I’ve made 4 different types of soap in the last few weeks alone, and will be posting most of them on the blog soon.
I would like to say, though, that you could also try using a more mild smelling olive oil. Extra virgin will give the soap a darker color and will add a bit more scent, but using a lighter olive oil should give you a light, almost white soap, and I don’t think it give much of a scent. Plus, keep in mind that the scent of the pumpkin spice essential oils is pretty strong. If you add the oils, I really doubt you will smell olive oil above the rest. I love olive oil, of course, because not only does it make an easy to work with, conditioning soap that eventually hardens to a nice hard bar without needing to use more solid oils, but I can easily find high quality olive oil here in Spain inexpensively. (Shea butter is super expensive in comparison!)
When I get home, I can try to come up with another idea of a soap recipe for a balanced soap that you can use for the pumpkin spice soap, and I can get back to you.
Fantastic recipe! This was my first time ever trying to make soap, I was so nervous it would not work out, but it did! Now I’m ready to try making more, prettier soaps!!
Hi DeeDee,
I’m so glad to hear it!
Lately I’ve been making a lot of new soaps for the blog (and for me, of course). 🙂
I just added a fun black facial soap with activated carbon powder, and I’ve even been dabbling in liquid soaps. If you do a search of soaps on the blog, you may be able to find something else that appeals to you. Homemade soaps make great Christmas gifts, so ’tis the season to start making them. hahaha
You’ve actually caught me while working on updating this post and making a beginner’s guide to soap making to give away as a freebie for people who sign up for my newsletter. It’s not ready yet, but I hope to make it available soon. I really love making natural products, and soap is just one of the most fun because it’s so easy, but looks so impressive once made. 😉
Have a great week!
thx for the soap ideas it was so fun to make!!!
You’re welcome, Tess!
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Now that you are no longer really a beginner, I have a few new soap recipes coming out that you may like to try. They aren’t difficult, but look even more impressive! 🙂
When is the best time to add poppy seeds or other add ins like oatmeal, cocunut or other stuff. I was reading trace is the best time. I am a beginner, Your calculator is perfect. All the other ones were so confusing. I can’t wait to try this!!!!!!
Thank you for such clear directions. I can’t wait to start making this soap!!!!
Hi Jenny!
Thanks so much for your comment!
I always add in the oils, colors, and other add-ins at trace.
Trace is the point where the soap is getting thicker, like a thin mayonnaise. For adding in something like poppy seeds that also makes it easier to add them in at a point where they will be evenly disbursed throughout the soap, rather than falling to the bottom.
Just make sure to give yourself enough time; you don’t have to wait until it’s super thick.
I chose this soap as a beginner soap for several reasons.
One is that it only has 2 main oils. Having too many oils scares people from trying a recipe because it looks too complicated.
The other reason is that it doesn’t set up super quickly, so it should give you a bit of time to play around with the add ins.
I hope it works out well for you and that you have fun making it!
Once you give this a go, I have a few other fun soaps for you to try, and I’ve made a few more lately that I need to post soon! 🙂
Hey Tracy, I mixed this beginner recipe three days ago and it is still very soft – I used fractionated coconut oil – was I supposed to melt solid coconut oil to mix in? Wondering why my recipe hasn’t hardened yet. Any tips?
Hi Kim,
Fractionated coconut oil behaves differently than regular coconut oil. It didn’t even occur to me that somebody would use fractionated coconut oil as it’s usually a lot harder to find. (I can’t find it at all here in Spain.) I just added a note on the ingredient section to make it clearer for the future. I’m just sorry that it wasn’t there early enough to help you.
The problem with fractionated coconut oil is that it needs more lye than regular coconut oil. I just ran it through a soap calculator because I wasn’t sure how much different it really is. Harder, more solid oils usually make the soap made with them get harder faster. I was hoping that in your case using a “softer” version of a “harder” (more solid) oil, that it would just mean that you would have to wait a little bit longer for your soap to harden, but it appears that by following the recipe as-is with fractionated coconut oil, you end up with a very soft, very “superfatted” soap.
What does that mean?
Superfatting is done to make a more conditioning soap. It’s the process of adding a little more fat/oil than what is needed to react with the lye, leaving some oil over to condition your skin. If you superfat too much (your case) your bar will take a really long time to harden, may go rancid a lot more quickly, and may not feel cleansing when used. (Too conditioning.)
There is a way to fix this if you don’t mind doing a little bit of work.
Because you know your exact issue, you can fix this batch by “rebatching” it. (Sort of like using melt and pour soap, but adding in new ingredients to fix something.)
If you followed the recipe exactly as written, you’d ideally need to add around 6 more grams of lye to get a soap that has been superfatted to around 5%. (A good percentage for a normal bar of soap)
I’ve been meaning to do a post on rebatching- maybe I should work on it soon.
In any case, the general gist is that you re-heat the soap to melt it enough to add in whatever you need to fix it. Soap is easily burnt, so most people either do it in a crock pot on low, in an oven in a ceramic dish in a low heat setting, in a double boiler (gently), or even in plastic bags in boiled water.
You’d want to cut the soap into small pieces and dissolve the 6 g of lye into a small amount of water (being just as careful with the lye this time around), and mix everything together over a gentle heat source until the soap melts and is as smooth as possible. (You can add a little more water if needed, but try not to add too much or it will take a lot longer to dry out.)
Your final result won’t be a liquid that you can pour into molds. You’ll have to press it in instead, and the soap will look a little more rustic, but it will be good, usable soap!
I did it once after seeing that I had read my own writing wrong (after the fact, upon seeing that my soap wasn’t hardening, I realized my error.)
It actually turns out pretty well, though, and the heating process is like making hot-process soap. It will help make the saponification process go more quickly and you should end up with a harder, more usable soap more quickly.
I hope that helps you somewhat.
I apologize for not being clearer with the instructions. I need to look into updating and adding some more tips to this post, along with video.
If there is anything I can do to help you with the rebatching process (if you choose to do it), just let me know. I’ll do my best to help in whatever way I can!
Hi Tracy! Thank you for making this wonderful recipe! I’ve been looking for infomation about soap making and others seems overwhelmed me. This recipe sounds approachable and fun! But my problem is I don’t have a crockpot and a blender stick. Can I use regular pot in the stove or do you have any idea how I can make things work? And I want to make small amount of soap for the first try, do I just cut half amount of your ingredient or what? Thank you so much. xoxo
Hi Dinda,
I don’t use a crock pot at all for my bar soaps. Re-read the recipe, and you’ll see that I don’t use it.
This is an easy “cold Processed soap.” You don’t need a crock pot unless you want to make it “warm process soap.”
I honestly hate the “warm process soap” process, and see no need for it.
People choose to do the warm process soap because they say that the soap can be used instantly, but really any soap “could” be used immediately if necessary. (They may be harsh on the skin at first if the saponification hasn’t completely finished, though.) And all soaps improve with a wait time.
Cold process soap tends to be a lot prettier and less glumpy, and the process is so much easier.
I’m away from my computer right now, so I’d have to run the recipe through a soap calculator to make sure it’s OK when halved. (I’ll try to remember to check tonight.)
This isn’t a large batch, though. It only partly filled up a loaf pan and a few small tupperware type containers.
I checked it through, and, yes, you should be fine halving this recipe. 🙂
great way of method
Hi how are you… Hope all is well I’m now learning about how to make soap would you please share cucumber melon recipe and where cand i find the mold and tools to cut the soap… Thank you kindly Reada
Hi Reada.
You are looking for a cucumber melon soap?
That’s something I haven’t tried yet, but I could look into it and experiment a little.
I personally usually just use silicone baking pans or plastic tupperware type containers as molds, but I have recently bought some soap molds on the internet. There are lots of soap supply stores online that have all sorts of supplies you can use. I would guess that most craft stores will also have soap molds. They usually use them for melt and pour soaps, but you can use them the same way with homemade soaps. I’d suggest picking molds that don’t have a lot of details as soft soaps often don’t hold up to picking up those details without using additives to harden them.
As for cutting, I usually just use a non-serrated knife, but you can also use string to cut it.
I hope that helps! 🙂
At what tempratur is it best to mix the oils and lye… ive done at room temprature as the mix og olive oil and melted coconut oil stay fluid in room temp (21-22C) and what about superfat? some say when using only liquid oils u should have a low superfat 3-4% what do you think?
Hi Marius.
Yes, I usually just mix them at room temperature too.
As for the superfatting, it really depends on the type of recipe you are trying to make. I don’t try to superfat much anyway unless I’m making a soap for a sensitive area like the face, but I’ve never heard the thing about liquid oils before. I tried to look it up, but couldn’t find anything about that.
Thanks, Tracy!! I succeed making my first handmade soaps!! Ur recipe is simple to understand!! Thanks so much!!
Thanks, Joel!
I’m so glad to hear it worked out for you!
That’s exactly what I was hoping for. Some recipes sound so difficult or intimidating, and I wanted to make something that looked simple enough to get people to want to try it. 🙂
I think im missing something somewhere.. i can find the directions to making the soap..
Hi Tee,
The recipe and directions show up in a large recipe card at the end of the post.
It’s showing up fine for me, and I can’t imagine that you would miss it if it were showing up for you too, so perhaps there is a problem with whatever browser you are using?
I’ve checked several browsers and have checked on my phone, and I can’t reproduce your issue.
If you try on another browser and still can’t see it, I’d appreciate if you could tell me the details of what you are using to try to see my recipes so that I can talk to someone to see if the issues can be fixed.
Thanks for the heads up!
Hi there! Thank you so much for writing this article. I can’t wait to try this out! Some of the ingredients I have to order online, like lye and the essential oils. I live in a small, rural area. Do you have a recommendation of where to get the lye, like a certain website? Another question I have, is what exactly happens if you use your soap too early, and not let it sit for a month? In the shower will it change consistency, like soft silly putty or something? (Sorry, this might be a silly question!). Thanks again!!
Hi Nancy,
you’re very welcome! It is a fun project. I’m looking forward to making more soon and (hopefully) making a “how-to” video.
I bought my lye at a local hardware store. You can also usually find it in supermarkets in the drain cleaner section, but you have to be careful about using one that only includes lye.
For ordering online…If you click on the word “lye” in the recipe above, I linked to a lye on Amazon that looked good to me and the one I would personally buy if I were in the US and shopping on Amazon.
As for using the soap too soon…
That is definitely NOT a silly question! 🙂
The longer you let the soap rest, the more the residual moisture will evaporate, which will result in a harder bar of soap. The time also allows for the saponification process to continue and fully complete.
That said, you can usually use the soap almost immediately. If you have all of your measurements right, the lye should be mostly converted and you shouldn’t have problems with irritation. You could use pH strips to test the pH of your final soap, which would give an indication of if the soap would be irritating to your skin. Soap recipes that have a bit more fat in them will result in softer soaps that will need longer for the soap to see and harden up. Soaps with less fat may be irritating because they may have residual lye that could irritate the skin. There is only a little wiggle room in the amounts used, which is why ingredients are measured by weight. I hope that makes sense.
If you use the soap in its softer stages, the soap won’t last as long because more will dissolve with each use. That’s really probably the main reason to wait a month before using the soap. Some people say that the quality of the suds may also improve with time, but I’m not really sure about that.
Good luck!
Hello, Tracy!
Thank you very much for this post, very well explained 😉
I made my own soap today, using your recipe but replacing lavender for eucalyptus.
The thing is: my soap didn’t get mayonnaise consistence even though I spent a while mixing it.
After searching a little I found out that Lye can have different concentrations. Well, seems like the one I used has 75% concentration, so I am afraid it might ruin the recipe 🙁
So I leave that tip for other beginners, check your lye’s concentration!!
Anyway, I will let it rest until tomorrow and see how it goes!
Thank again, have a great day 🙂
Hi Marcella,
Interesting.
Thanks so much fro contributing your tip!
I’ve only seen what I think is probably pure lye- but I do check the ingredients and make sure I’m buying lye and not a drain cleaner that has other ingredients in it.
Did your ingredient list show other ingredients? Or do you think it’s mainly a moisture thing?
I want to make a video for this post now that the weather is getting nicer, and I’d like to update the with more tips and ideas from others, so your tip really helps.
I really hope that yours turns out anyway. There is a chance that even at a light trace that yours will turn into soap- it just might take a bit longer, and it may end up on the soft side. If that is the case, usually the bars will eventually harden- although it could take even months if they have a lot more fat than needed. Soaps like that tend to be on the overly moisturizing side, but still are usuable- especially for skin. (They probably aren’t great for getting a squeaky clean feeling on other things.)
There is also the possibility of adding a bit more lye to rebatch later on, so as not to waste the ingredients, but it would probably be safest if you had some pH strips in the process so as not to guess too much with adding too much lye.
Great soap recipe. i really loved it. combine this recipe with the adorable molds i got from bulkapothecary.com/categories/soap-making-supplies.html and now everyone i know is getting a homemade basket of soaps! i wrapped the soaps in a variety of papers and ribbon and they look better then a purchased soap! Loving this so much. thanks so much
Thanks Raegan!
I’m so happy that it worked out well for you.
Homemade gifts are always my favorite, and I love gifts like this that look as good/better than store bought stuff.
Now to experiment with more types of soap- it can be addicting. 😉
Thank u I will try your receipe.i was wondering if I can use other essential oil or fresh herbs
Hi Silla,
Of course!
I love experimenting. I was hoping to push people to do some experimenting of their own with this post.
You should keep in mind, though, that certain essential oils may cause the soap to reach trace earlier, so you may have a little less working time. (Perhaps the opposite is also true.)
I like splitting up the batch and trying different things with small parts of each batch. That way if something doesn’t work out as I’d hoped, I don’t lose an entire batch of soap.
I’ve just put my first ever attempt into some silicone molds. Next time I will use silicone pipe. thanks for that great idea and for your simple recipe. My mix was too thick to pour so I spooned it into the molds. I am wondering if you can over beat the mix and go beyond trace point but I guess you have never done that?
Hi Jose,
Yes, if you wait too long or beat for too long, then, yes, it will get too thick.
That’s why it’s best to start pouring when you reach a light trace- when it starts to get opaque.
Certain recipes and essential oils will give you less working time, giving you less time to easily pour your soap into your molds. The temperature of your soap will also affect your working time.
I hope that helps!
Love love love this soap recipe! It is so much simpler and easier to follow compared to others I have found. 1 question I have though, if I wanted to make a number of smaller shaped soap moulds would I pour this mixture straight into the moulds or make these bigger bars, let them cool and cure and then melt it down again and pour into smaller moulds? I want to make little soap favours for my wedding and this is the best recipe I have found. Thanks 🙂
Hi Vicky.
Thanks so much! I’m happy you like it. 🙂
If you want to make party favours using this recipe, I’d definitely say to pour it directly into your moulds. When you re-melt homemade soap, it doesn’t turn out as smoothly as soaps made to be “melt and pour” soaps. Re-melting will make a soap that isn’t as smooth, and a lot more “rustic” looking, which probably isn’t what you are looking for when making favors for a wedding.
I would work in smaller batches, unless you have enough moulds to do a lot at once, and that will also give you a bit more working time if you don’t have experience with soap making.
Another tip- I’d suggest not using very delicate, intricate moulds with this soap- although there are additives you can add to the recipe to make it a harder soap that will allow for better details. I can’t remember the name of what is usually used off the top of my head, but I can look it up if you are interested.
I hope that helps!
If you have to make lots of them- the easiest option is probably a melt and pour type soap because you can melt down only as much as you need at a time. Of course, I love the challenge of making my own, and would probably work ahead so that I could make it myself in several batches spaced out over time.
You could also use pvc pipe, greased with oil to help release the soap, to make a big tube of soap that could be cut into small, circular bars that might be pretty for favours, especially if wrapped nicely or given in organza bags. Just thinking out loud. 😉
Love soap recipes that don’t overcomplicate things. Sometimes simplicity turns out to be fabulous. Your pics look great.
Thanks, Michelle.
I agree! It’s no wonder people are too intimidated to make soap. 😉
I love the look of your soaps, too, and can’t wait to try them!
Hello trying this for the first time and the only question have is should you weigh the coconut oil solid or liquid
Hi Debbie,
You can weigh either way! That’s the nice thing about using weight and not volume, and probably one of the main reasons that weight is used for soap recipes which need to be pretty accurate. No matter what format you use for the ingredients (including the lye which is sometimes powdered, sometimes flakes, etc.) you’ll end up with the right amount by weighing them. The volume can change, but the weight will stay the same.
I hope that helps and that it works out well for you. Soap making can be a lot of fun once you get over the initial intimidation. (Or at least I was intimidated at first.) 😉
thank you very much, that helped a lot. I made my first batch of soap and it has be sitting now for 2 days its SOAP it actually turned out.
Yay!
I’m so happy to hear that it worked out, Debbie!! 🙂
That is wonderful making soap easily, I’ll try to do it for my students, Thank you
Thanks, Ibrahim.
I hope they enjoy the project!
This post has helped me totally understand the principles of soapmaking, something all my previous reading left me confused about. I made my first batch (so far my only batch, but I try again tomorrow) and had to hand-blend with a whisk. An hour later it was only very light trace, I had the choice of either throwing it out or pouring it into the molds just for the heck of it. I did the latter and a day later had the beginnings of real soap. Yesterday I showered with it and was thrilled. I am sure I will get adventuresome and play around with recipes in time.
Hi Sheri,
You are braver that I am. I’ve often heard that it takes forever (yes, like the hour you were whisking!) if you choose to stir by hand. At least you got in a bit of a workout. 😉
Most of the time a light trace is plenty to successfully make soap once you mold it and let it finish the process on its own. I’m glad it worked out for you.
Making soap can get addicting. I hope you do have fun playing around with it and making custom soaps of your own!
Hi! Am so glad I came across your site, and the recipe are just the oils I have. Will be trying it out immediately. But want to confirm the measurements were in grams, aside my lie ( caustic soda), everything else is in liquid can I measure my oils in grams? That is using a scale.?
Hi Judith,
I’m glad to hear it!
Yes, you can measure everything on a scale, and yes, I used grams because I felt it was easier. People get confused between liquid ounces, weight ounces, etc.
My scale has a switch and switches back and forth between grams and ounces. For some reason I just felt like the recipe seemed like it looked easier in grams, even though it’s just as easy to weigh our either. 🙂
This is really a great multipurpose soap recipe which you can customize with other scented oils, etc. to suit your tastes. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Just used your tutorial for my first ever batch of soap. Super simple! Everything went as expected/described and the soap set enough to cut within 24 hours. I’m excited to start playing around with scents!
Hi Sylveria,
Thanks so much for your comment!
I love hearing about your experience with it and I’m glad it went well for you.
I have a few holiday soap ideas (a gingerbread soap and a pumpkin spice soap) up on the blog to give you some ideas of what you can do, but I’d love hearing about what you come up with too. 🙂
I am trying this recipe for the first time. I decided to make one serving (one bar) at first because I didn’t want to waste all the ingredients if it didn’t work. I am having a hard time getting the mixture to trace. It is slightly runnier than that of mayonnaise. Once I slowly mix the lye/water mixture with the oil mixture should I then speed up the mixer? Approximately how many minutes of mixing should it take for the mixture to trace? Thanks!
Hi Ashlynn, The time it takes depends on a lot of factors: the temperature, essential oils added, and,yes,the speed of the blender. It is said that you can do it by hand, but it would take forever. Higher speeds will get you there more quickly.
Hopefully you have things worked out by now.
In any case, even a light trace is usually enough to get it to set. I stiĺl prefer getting it to a thcker trace to be sure.
Hi, when you used the essential oil were you able to actually smell it? I’ve made soap before but had a hard time getting the essential oils and scents to come through.
Hi Leona,
Yes, I can definitely smell the essential oils when adding them to my soap, and I have soaps that are over a year old and they still are smelling pretty strong.
I’m not sure why you would have that issue. Maybe if your soap is still very hot when you add the oils in?
A lot of people heat their oils before mixing with the lye, so they are more likely to have a higher temperature to their soap at trace.
I don’t heat mine and have never had an issue with making soap without heating the oils first. I only heat oils that are in a solid state to melt them.
Maybe that is one reason for the scent lasting longer?
Ok, I think that was the issue, I’ll have to remember that next time. Thanks.
You’re welcome!
I hope that’s what the issue is.
When working with lotions I know it’s best to wait until the product has cooled down a little before adding fragrances so that they don’t lose their potency.
hello,
I am a novice soapmaker, but I have had success with a similar olive oil recipe. The recipe I’ve been using includes beeswax to make the soap a little harder. I noticed you do not use beeswax, is your soap on the softer side? Does it seem to melt away quickly when used?
Thank you!
P.S. I am set to try your delicious pumpkin spice soap next, can’t wait!
Hi Rebekah,
Thanks for your comment!
To be honest, I hadn’t even heard about people adding beeswax to their soap until I saw your comment!
Since I’ve been reading a little more about it, it appears that it does work well to help make a harder bar of soap, but it can be tricky to work with because you need to keep the heat up high to keep it melted.
This soap, after waiting a month or two, has the consistency of normal soap. I don’t really know how to describe it. 😛
It sill only melt away quickly if you use it too soon after having made it.
There are things you can do to help harden it more, though, if that is your preference.
You can use a bit of salt in the water component which will help harden the soap somewhat. Some people also use sodium lactate, which is supposed to be great for making molded soaps come out beautifully. The problem with that, of course, is that it is more difficult to find and isn’t something that you likely have around your house.
I hope it works out well for you.
The pumpkin spice one is probably my favorite!
I’m planning on making homemade soaps for christmas presents this year. I live in Canada and am having some trouble figuring out where to by Lye. There seem to be a few options within my province but some of it seems very cheap compared to others a found in the states. How to I know if it is Quality Lye? Shipping is crazy from the US so I’m looking for affordable but quality.
Any info would be helpful!
Thanks!
Hi Keira,
Thanks for your comment.
Well, to be honest, I’m not sure. I found lye here in Spain in the home improvement store and supermarkets in the cleaning section. Lye is often used to help clear out drains, so that is why it’s usually put there.
I’ve been reading about the different types of lye, but I couldn’t really find anything about some types being better quality than others. Lye is really only sodium hydroxide, so I would think that as long as that is the only ingredient in the product you are buying, that you should be fine for soap making. You do have to be careful that you don’t buy a drain cleaner with other added ingredients, though.
Interestingly, when trying to figure out about the different types of lye, I found a thread talking about “food grade lye” as lye is often used in things like making pretzels crispy on the outside, or for curing olives, for example, but even there most thought that the “food grade label” didn’t change much more than the cost involved in getting that certification. They were using regular store grade lye in their food making. I’m not sure I would do that without more research, but I think you should be fine with whatever sodium hydroxide you can find locally when making soap. (I’ve used several local types already- some powder, some pellets- all worked without problem.)
I hope that helps! Have fun making gifts. I’m glad you got a good head start to give them time to cure. 🙂
Oh, btw-
I forgot to say that you can also supposedly (I’ve never personally tried it) use potassium hydroxide that people say sells pretty inexpensively in stores where chemistry teachers buy their materials (chemical supplies stores). As I’m not familiar with those sorts of stores 😛 , I chose to point out the other. It is an option, though. If you did find that sort of store, they’d be able to better help you with questions about quality and such.
What a great basic recipe for soap! Often what can be found on the internet is rather advanced recipes so this is great. I also love your blog, just came across it today and I very much enjoyed reading many of your posts!
Anna
http://plainandpure.blogspot.be
Thanks, Anna!
I’m glad you liked it.
I’ll try to go and check out your blog later on tonight!
This recipe sounds great! Do you just purchase your oils at the supermarket?
Hi Nancy,
Thanks for your comment!
While I do buy my olive oil at my local supermarket, I have to order the coconut oil online because I wasn’t able to find coconut oil locally here in Spain until just recently. While I can buy it locally here, it is still hard to find and overpriced. It’s actually cheaper for me to order it from Germany through Amazon or eBay.
Thank you so much for your clear cut instructions! Finally, after months of finding something to work with, I found exactly what I was looking for right here! Thanks again 🙂
You’re very welcome!
Thanks so much for your comment, Krystal!
Hi Tracy,
The step by step instructions that you have mentioned makes me want to jump into soap making right away. Can I use caustic soda that is 98% in place of sodium hydroxide? Will the measurements differ if I use caustic soda? Can you please let me know. Also will the chemical be in powder for or in crystal form? I saw in some YouTube video that lye crystals were used. Can I use caustic soda that comes in powder form? Please let me know
Hi Ramya,
Thanks for your comment. I had never heard the term caustic soda, but after looking it up, it appears to be the same thing as sodium hydroxide (aka. lye). So as long as you use it in any of it’s solid forms, you should be OK. I have used both crystals and powder and it works the same either way since you will be dissolving it in liquid for soap making anyway.
I hope that helps, and I hope it goes well for you. Making soap is addictive and fun. 🙂
Hi Tracy,
I love the sound of this approachable recipe. I’ve been holding off on making soap because they all sound incredibly intimidating to even attempt! I was curious, what size mold(s) did you use for this particular recipe? I have a 2.5 pound silicone mold that I think would work great with this recipe.
Hi Elisa,
I just use a regular loaf pan most of the time.
I sometimes separate a little out to make shaped soaps in one or two small plastic containers, but it all does fit in my pan. I obviously don’t end up filling the pan as high when I do that.
The dimensions of the pan in the pictures is about 24cm (9.5in) x 10cm (4 in) with a height of 7cm (almost 3 inches). I’m not sure the equivalent in pounds, but from looking on Google it seems that your pan is on the larger end of the spectrum of loaf pans. If that’s the case, I probably wouldn’t separate any of the soap out. Depending on the size of your pan, of course, you’ll end up with taller or shorter bars of soap. Personally, I like the rectangular, shorter bars of soap best, anyway, so I don’t think having a big pan is a problem. It really depends on what you’re looking for.
doing a quick conversion of some of the ingredients, I’d guess this to be make just under 4 cups of soap. (I never work in volume when making soap, so I’ve never measured the final product that way either.) You could try adding 4 cups of water to your pan to get an idea of what you’ll end up with.
I hope that helps, and that you have fun making soap!
You should use wooden or plastic or silicone molds. Never a metal as it is reactive with lye. It will cause a failed batch of soap.
Thanks, Brenda, for the tip!
I’ve always used plastic and silicone, but didn’t even think to mention that so that others wouldn’t use metal.
I’ve been meaning to update this post with new tips, so I’ll definitely add that!
This blog is perfect. so happy this is the first thing i clicked on. I’m definitely going to try this and pray a month later it worked haha! I’m always buying new soaps cause I’m just addicted to bars and they’re scents and just YUM ahha. so why not make my own! i think if i can pull this off it’d be a cute thank you gift for my baby shower.
Hi Cynthia!
I’m so happy you like my blog, and hope it works out well for you! I’ve become addicted making all sorts of new soaps. Once you get over the initial intimidation, it’s really pretty simple.
If you could find cute molds or stamps, it would totally personalize them and make a great baby shower gift. You could try looking for candy or ice cube molds that fit the theme, letting you pour up several small soaps at a time. Another cute idea would be to make small bars of soap for everyone, and get a cute stamp to personalize it. After cutting your bars, when your soap is still relatively soft, you can stamp it pretty easily. I hope that helps! 🙂
Thank you for this tutorial! Might you be able to estimate about how many bars of soap this makes? (I realize this can vary largely…)
Hello!
It’s been awhile since I’ve made this particular soap recipe, but it’s a very similar batch size to the one I made in my pumpkin spice soap, and I counted the bars of soap for somebody not too long after I had made them.
I’ll copy and paste what I wrote her about that soap. This should be very comparable…
“I made 11 bars with the recipe, but I was experimenting so they are all different sizes. Most of them aren’t that big.
The one in the picture with the words on it is only about 3in. x 1.5in. x .75 in., and I made 7 of those.
The rectangular ones were twice that size 3in. x 1.5in. x 1.5in., and I made 2 of those.
I also made 2 larger soap bars. So, it really depends on the size soap you want to make. In the end, I think my favorite is the rectangular soap.
I cut off a lot of edges and things when squaring up my soap, and I added those scraps to water to make a sort of liquid soap for my kitchen. (Future post idea?) 🙂 So, I did get a little more soap out of it than that.”
I really hope that helps.
Hi, Tina and Keri!
Thanks for your comments!
I found them quite interesting because I learned how to make soap from Spanish TV shows, followed by looking at Spanish websites. The methods for many things here are a bit more lax than in the US. Most Americans would cringe if they saw how canning is commonly performed here, and I’m guessing that soap making is similar.
To be honest, I didn’t until now even realize that people looked at the temperature of their ingredients when making soap. Here, most people just let the remaining heat of the lightly cooled lye solution slightly heat the oils, which is what I have always done without any problems. After a bit of research, I see that there is a “Room temperature method” that is talked about online, and that seems to be a very similar idea to what I do and what I see done here.
I have made numerous batches of soap over the years, and have never had any problems with that method. Interestingly enough, even when I have cooled the lye solution down, like when making lye solutions with milk, it hasn’t caused me any issues with achieving trace.
You have made me want to read more about the subject, though, and do some experimentation with temperatures myself. I’ll try to do it soon and update the post with my findings as soon as I can.
I really do appreciate your feedback!
the reason it didnt trace is because the lye and oil need to be the same temperature when added together, roughly between 50-90°…using jam thermometers should help!
I don’t see any mention at all of melting the oils to a temperature compatible with the lye temperature. Wondering if I missed that part here. But oils and lye have to be close in temp readings before you mix them together. Too hot and it won’t trace. Too cold and you get a gloppy mess.
Help….please help….
I followed this recipe to a “T” in terms of ingredients. I doubled the batch to make a larger mold and I used a regular hand mixer not a stick. I also mixed the lye outside. It was cold when I brought it in, not warm at all. 🙁 I mixed the lye in with the oils and instantly it turned a nice milky yet yellowish color. I kept mixing as it wasn’t thick like pudding. I mixed for the better part of 30 mins and it didn’t change so I thought maybe I’d already reached trace. I put in my EO’s and poured it into my mold. 36 hours and it was still liquid…grainy at best. I didn’t want to throw it out so I had read about crockpot cooking it…..so I put it all in a crockpot. It’s the nice milky color again and has foam on top but won’t harden at all……
Have I ruined this batch??? Ugh!!! I’m so mad at myself and I’m not sure what I did wrong 🙁
Please help…..
Hi Felicia,
I’m sorry this isn’t working for you. Sometimes when it is cold, it takes a much longer time to reach trace.
That said, I’ve had mine reach a light trace before, and, impatient, have put it in the molds a bit too soon, but even then, it usually has become a soft solid by a day later and is ready to cut 2-3 days after having poured it.
I wish I knew what the problem might be to better help you.
Are you sure the measurements were right? I’m wondering if there were issues with the lye somehow or something?!?
I have to be honest and say that I really don’t know because I haven’t had that problem yet, especially not with this recipe. (Sometimes when I start mixing in crazy, new ingredients, it doesn’t solidify as quickly.)
I really wish I had better answers for you.
It seems to me that for some reason the reaction didn’t take place, and that makes me wonder about the lye- either the quality/age/type of it, the measurement of it or something. I really wish there were more that I could say to help you out.
I would like to add that when doubling everything, it will take longer to get things to go to trace.
Did you try blending it again after heating it in the crock pot? Heating it should help it reach trace more quickly if everything else is OK.
I’m also wondering what type of blender you used? I’m not sure I’m understanding the difference between a hand blender and a stick blender because I’m not really up on the terminology for these things after living in Spain for so many years. 😉
I do know that they say that it can take the upwards of an hour for soap to reach trace when being blended by hand. So, perhaps, if your blender isn’t very high speed, and you have a lot of ingredients to mix, and you’re ingredients were cold, perhaps all is OK still, and you just didn’t blend it long enough to reach trace?
I wish I could say it with more certainty, but it is a possibility. A lot of things can factor in with how long it takes you to get to trace, and sometimes it takes me a lot longer than others. Temperature is a huge factor.
I really do wish you the best of luck, and hope you can save your batch!!
You can’t just double a soap recipe. Run the amounts through a soap calculator. Lye is the one ingredient that may have a major impact. Think of soap as a formula instead of a recipe. There’s a chemical reaction going on. A hand mixer like one you use for mixing a cake is not what is needed here. You need a handheld immersion blender for the job. Btw, Tools used to make soap should be set aside and only used for soapmaking. Don’t mix the two ever. There are lots of videos on YouTube about soapmaking. Look for “Homemade Soap at Marsha’s” on YouTube, by Misty Prepper. Sorry I can’t give you a direct link, I’m on my Kindle.
im really interested in making your recipe. I was wondering if you have tried substituting the olive oil with other oils like almond or jojoba? if so, good or bad results?
Hi Deanna,
Yes, I’m constantly playing around with different mixes of oils. To be honest, I use olive oil a lot because it is so plentiful and cheap here in Spain, so I know I’m getting a good quality oil without spending a fortune. I also like using oils that I think will be relatively easy to find for most of my readers.
That said, there are also a lot of almonds here, and almond oil is also pretty inexpensive and easy to find here. In fact, I happen to have a couple of wild almond trees in my yard.
You can see that I did use some almond oil in my pumpkin spice soap. Different oils have different properties, so it’s a good idea to look up what other people say about them. Some are great for moisturizing, others for lather, others to get a harder bar of soap, etc.
If you are going to substitute oils, it’s a good idea to run it through a lye calculator, just in case. You may need a bit more or less oil of one type vs. another to go with the same amount of lye.
I’d love to hear how your experiments go if you try something new!
Hey!! loved your post. I’m looking to make soap in the shape of a honeycomb bee using a soap mold. Can I make your soap in bulk and then melt it at a later time then pour it into the mold? If so, do I have to keep turning the soaps back and forth for them to harden over time? Thanks!
I actually haven’t tried remelting the soap afterwards, but it is something I could try.
The flipping it just helps it to dry evenly more quickly, and isn’t completely necessary. Eventually the soap will completely harden on its own.
I have some extra bars, and am planning on working on some new soaps for Christmas anyway- so if I do try it, and it works, I’ll let you know.
I actually forgot to come back here after trying to remelt homemade soaps.
Here’s the deal: Yes, you can do it, and yes, it does work.
The problem? It’s a lot harder to work with than freshly made soap, and the resulting bars aren’t as smooth and uniform. If you don’t mind “rustic” looking soap, though, you can play with it.
Great thank you!
How do you measure the ingredients? They are all in grams or an odd number of oz. can you approximate the measurements?
I wouldn’t suggest approximating too much because if the ratio is off by much, the lye may not all react with the oils, and some may remain and can hurt your skin. I just noticed that my digital scale lets you switch from grams to ounces, so I guess I can really use either.
If you mean by approximating using 3.5 ounces when I wrote 3.53oz., then that probably wouldn’t be a big deal because the difference there is very minimal. The essential oils can also be approximated, of course.
Does your scale allow for measuring out one place after the decimal- 17.6 oz, 3.5 oz….?
I guess I wasn’t thinking a digital scale. Can you recommend one , and where I can purchase it?
Thanks
I live in Spain, so my options are a bit different. That said, I have a wall mounted type like this one: http://amzn.to/1bxobeD . It allows for grams and ounces. You pull down the glass table to weight things, and then fold it back up afterwards. I love it!
If you don’t use a scale often, or don’t have the wall space, though, just a simple scale like this would be nice: http://amzn.to/1kzwZ5K . (Inexpensive & pretty & allows for grams and ounces!!)
Hope that helps! 🙂
Why not just use the coconut oil to bathe. I mean lye is caustic no matter how long it sits it is still not better than straight coconut oil which is a natural antifungal and antibacterial. So throw some shredded coconut in a food processor and that’s it, coconut butter. Faster, easier and much better for the skin.
Veronia,
You are incorrect.
After the soap sopanifies, there is no lye left.
You MUST let your CP soap sit for a minimum of 4 weeks. During that time the soap continues to cure and the pH level will drop to 7.
Thanks for your comment.
In any case, even if people choose to not use soap on their bodies, I’m assuming that soap is used elsewhere around the house, like for washing dishes and clothes. (Although I guess there are other alternatives like soap nuts which are said to work quite well.)
I’m a bit on the crunchy side myself, but I still prefer to use soap in the shower. I think it’s a great alternative to shower gels. I also prefer soap to chemical detergents, when possible, around the house.
Hi Tracy!!
So for a long time I wanted to start a little hobby making home made soaps. I’ve finally made it to a point in my life where I can put time aside to do so! I was wondering with this be a particular area of expertise for you, would be so kind as to help me by maybe providing a list of everything needed as well as suggested for a soap maker apprentice 😁
Ps: This blog is absolutely phenomenal! Every time a question pops up in my mind about how to do this and that or how to fix a possible problem I just read farther down and the answer is there💕
Hi Timmy!
Thanks so much for your very kind comment! I try my best to add as much information as I can to each post, and I’m very happy to hear that it is helpful and appreciated. 🙂
So, you want to know what sort of materials you need to make a hobby of homemade soaps?
Honestly, when you first begin, you don’t really need much. As I showed here, you don’t even need special molds when you first begin. You can just use silicone molds and plastic containers that you already have at home.
I would just start out with the essentials: I think a hand held blender is essential. Some people make soaps without them, but I’ve heard it can take a very long time. There are inexpensive immersion blenders on the market, so I’d definitely invest in one. You obviously need some lye, and as you get more comfortable making soaps, you can buy a variety of oils and waxes, but as a beginner olive oil and coconut oil are perfect to start with.
You’ll need safety glasses and gloves, to be safe. A stainless steel pan is helpful to help melt any solid oils/waxes, and you’ll also need a couple of bowls for mixing. (I prefer glass, but if you use metal, make sure it’s stainless steel.) I also use stainless steel spoons and forks for mixing, and silicone spatulas for clearing out the bowls.
For molds, you can use what I mentioned above, or you can even reuse materials you have on hand. I’ve read of people using Pringles containers, milk cartons, lined cardboard boxes, etc.
As time goes by, you may want to look into being an inexpensive slow cooker for making liquid soaps (in which case you’ll also need KOH instead of regular lye), glycerin soaps (I’ll try to post one here soon), or if you’d like to rematch problematic soap or try the hot process method.
Other than that, off the top of my head, I can’t think of a lot more. You can consider buying some essential oils or fragrance oils, and can also look into colorants if you like. I’m hoping to write up a post soon about naturally coloring soaps, but there is a huge variety of colorants, natural and synthetic, available, depending upon your final goals.
Once you make your first batch, you’ll have a better idea of what you want to do next, and what you’ll need. So I recommend starting out simple, and getting right into your first batch, if you haven’t yet. 😉
I hope that helps!
If you have more specific questions about any of the materials, just let me know.
I would like to start this soap manufacturing business can you guide me
Hello,
I focus on making soap for friends and family, so I really don’t know much about soap manufacturing as a business. That sort of question also really depends on the laws of wherever you live. Sorry I can’t be of more help.
Well I m here Pakistan,here not any legal ristrction for home made manufacturing business so if you add me I’ll able to ask any queries during making time
I’m happy to answer any questions that you have about making the soap while you are making it. Just ask them here, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I see them. I don’t have a lot of knowledge on the business of soap making/selling/marketing, etc., though.
Love this post!! I’m so wanting to make my own, but totally intimidated!
I was too, but it is so easy and so worthwhile!! Do it and let me know when you do!!
Made my first batch today, the instructions were great. Lets hope in 24 hours I have soap.
Thanks for your comment, Sharon!
I hope you love your soap!!
I am a little confused on heating the lye and water outside on a flame. Will the glass not break?
Hi Debra,
You don’t heat the lye and water with a flame at any point in the recipe.
You mix the lye and the water outside or in a well ventilated area.
It does heat up on its own a bit because of the chemical reaction, but you don’t want to heat it, and I definitely wouldn’t put a flame to it!
You have to let the soap sit for 4 weeks before use! This is so the PH levels neutralize and will not cause a chemical burn. Very important.
After a couple of days, the saponification process will have completed and there isn’t really a risk of burns.
That said, the soap will continue to improve and harden over the course of the next weeks. That’s why all soaps should go through a curing process. Not only will the water evaporate, leaving a harder, longer lasting bar, but other chemical reactions will continue to take place that make the soap milder and better overall.
to be safe on skin it needs to be tested for PH. somewhere around 7-10 is good…. just a FYI .
ok officially the most helpful site so far,thank you
Thanks, Jeremiha!
I’m glad it’s helped you. 🙂
hi, i wonder why the soap i made was brittle. When I cut them into pieces it turns into pieces. won’t work. Please give me some tips..
Hi Myrna,
I’m sorry to hear you had problems with the soap.
Perhaps you waited too long to try to cut them? As the soap hardens it will get less soft and more brittle.
Another reason soap can be brittle is if it has too much lye. Soap recipes are done by weight because the ratio of oil to lye needs to be fairly exact. Measuring by volume can easily throw a recipe off. Is there any way that you could have used slightly too much lye?
Assuming that you measured everything correctly, there are things you can do to try to save the batch. Either way, there are ways you can use a brittle soap that isn’t pretty enough to gift…
1. You can melt the soap down and remold it and try to cut it again. While it usually works, you’ll end up with a more “rustic” appearance to your soap because it doesn’t end up as smooth as when you first make it. (I have been meaning to make a post about it- perhaps this is the push I needed to work on it. 🙂 )
The only problem with this is if you accidentally used too much lye, then it probably wouldn’t be fixed by re-batching unless you were to add in more oil during the process. Without knowing what your issue is, it’s hard to know exactly what you’d need to do to fix it (how much oil to add in, etc.).
2. You could always grate it down and use it in homemade laundry detergents or dissolve in water for a sort of liquid soap.
I hope that helps a little.
Hello, I tried this recipe and love it! Everything about it, except I’m am sensitive to it in my private area but have used coconut oil and olive oil before to moisture.
What could it possibly be. I have tried many natural soaps before and never had a problem.
Hi Terri,
Well, I’m not really sure.
How long after making the soap did you use it?
Soap in general has a high pH and can be drying. That said, this soap uses mild oils and has more oils than what are needed to use up all of the lye during the saponification process. So, it should be quite mild.
When it comes to private areas, there is a lot of discussion about whether or not soaps should be used, and I’ve seen doctors say to only clean those area with warm water. That said, I also normally use some soap (normally my liquid castile soap). I just use a very small amount and try to stay external. 😉
The only reason I can think of for it being more irritating than another soap would be that either the soap was used right away and the saponification process hadn’t fully completed, or somehow something went wrong with the measurements (which can actually happen if one of the ingredients is off- it’s not necessarily your fault! I actually am trying to figure out how I’m going to use a batch of this soap that I made with a different “light” olive oil as an experiment. The soap never fully hardened, and it’s very soft. The change in oil used definitely completely changed the way the recipe turned out. Not all oils are equal either!)
I’m not sure what else it could be. I haven’t had a problem with this soap being at all harsh. It’s actually milder than the liquid soap, I think.