“Oh my gosh, that is actually soap?” People ask me. This is always the reaction because of how beautiful this recipe turns out to be. Making soap is not too difficult and it is much better for your skin than most store-bought soaps.

I have added links below to make it easier for you to acquire the ingredients to make it yourself.

Other soap recipes:

Simple Homemade Soap Recipe

Things that go into soap recipes:

Homemade Lard Recipe

In my wife’s journey to making the most beautiful soaps this is the first one she made like this! I was immediately amazed at the beauty of it.

“Oh my gosh, that is actually soap?” People ask me. This is always the reaction because of how beautiful this recipe turns out to be.

It may take a steady hand but like anything else, you get better at it with time. This post is not specifically to show how to make the decorated soap but to show the potential of a simple soap recipe.

BRIEF HISTORY OF SOAP

It is uncertain who invented soap but the oldest accounts of the production of a soap like material is around 2500 BC
Formula for making soap has been found on sumerian tablets dating to 2500 BC
The 3 basic components soap are fat, ash, and time.

For a more complete history and more information on soap, check out this wikipedia sight for soap!

EQUIPMENT NEEDED FOR HOMEMADE SOAP:

Gloves
Safety goggles or safety glasses
Grams and ounces scale
Plastic or stainless-steel containers

-Do not use glass or aluminum!

-Lye and aluminum when combined create a gas that is harmful to inhale.

-When lye is mixed with water in glass, it can etch the glass over time and can get so hot that it breaks that glass.
Double boiler
Emulsion mixer
Piping bag and tips

INGREDIENTS FOR HOMEMADE SOAP:

9.29 oz Water or ice

-We use ice because when lye mixes with water it creates a lot of heat.

-Ice will keep the temperature lower and help keep the mixture from boiling. As well as limit the potential for a violent reaction.
4.58 oz Sodium Hydroxide (100% Lye)
6.4 oz Castor Oil
9.6 oz Coconut Oil
16 oz Lard
1 oz Fragrance

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE SOAP

Make sure that you have safety glasses and gloves on for all steps that include lye!

Weigh out the lye into plastic container and set aside.

Place water or ice into a larger plastic or stainless-steel container.
Slowly pour in a few tablespoons lye and mix it in with the ice. After you have mixed it around, add a few more tablespoons of lye and mix. Do this until all the lye is mixed in and if you used ice, it will likely all melt.
You pour in little bits at a time to avoid the mixture getting too hot at one time.

The mixture will be a little bit cloudy at first. Mix it together until it becomes mostly clear.

Get a double boiler ready and melt your solid fats which are lard and coconut oil.
Melt the fat and prepare to mix the fat with the lye and water mixture.
You are going to mix them together when they are within 10°F of each other. So, try not to heat up your fat too much so you don’t have to wait too long for you ingredients to cool down.

After the coconut oil and lard are melted together, add in your castor oil.

Now is the time for you to combine the lye and water mixture with the coconut oil, lard, and castor oil.
You must mix these ingredients when they are within 10°F of each other. We try and mix them when they are right around 110°F. An ice bath may be used if you want to cool one of them down faster.
You can mix them up to 140°F but not hotter than this. You may go colder than 110°F as long as the coconut oil and lard do not begin to solidify again.

Mixing lye and water with coconut oil, lard, and castor oil.

Using an immersion mixer, begin mixing the ingredients together.

Mix together until the mixture becomes “trace”. Trace is a word used to describe the thickness of the mixture.
You will know its trace when you lift the mixer out and let some of the mixture drip into the bowl. If it leaves a trace meaning it leaves a mark on the surface, then it is thick enough.

After trace has been attained, it is time to put in fragrances and colors.
We used cocoa powder and coffee grounds for this recipe. We did not use any special colors or scents other than these natural ones.

To make a swirl pattern in the soap, you can mix the bowl with half of 1 color and half of another.
As you can see above, half the soap is mixed with cocoa powder and half is mixed with coffee. This will make interesting patterns within the soap after it has been poured.

The soap is now ready to pour.

Here is a truffle mold which we will pour first. It will solidify and we will use the truffles to decorate the soap.

Use a spatula to smooth out the top of the mold. Put the extra soap back in to the bowl to be reused.

Pour the soap mix into the loaf mold.

After the soap is poured, cover it with a piece of plastic.
Covering the soap with plastic will reduce the amount of oxygen that hits the surface. This will help prevent soda ash.
Soda ash will show itself as a white powder on the outside of your soap. It does not effect the soap negatively other than that it makes it look slightly less appealing. Steaming soap with soda ash will bring the color back.

Let the soap harden for 24 hours before unmolding and cutting bars.
After cutting the bars and unmolding the truffle soap, we made another batch of soap with no color in it to make the whipped cream top. Then using a piping bag and tip, we piped the whipped cream on top and added a truffle.
Now you will let the soap cure for 6 weeks or around 45 days.

HOW TO CURE SOAP

Soap needs to be cured for around 6 weeks or 45 days before using it. This process is called saponification. During this time the soap will harden and effectively turn in to soap.
Place the soap on a rack that is open to air and lay them out with space in between the bars to allow airflow.
You may see crystals form on the soap during this time, and you may not. This will not negatively affect the soap but it can be unsightly. These crystals can be washed off to restore the look of the soap.

Yield: 8-10 Bars of Soap