Over the holiday break, we had a small crisis at home. We ran out of soap! So, while the showeree was in the shower yelling for soap, we searched high and low for a bar of soap. When we couldn’t find any soap, we had to steal the bar of soap from the kitchen sink.
I was told that I needed to make some more soap before the bar of soap disappeared. So, we will make the Oatmeal & Honey Almond Soap from our Recipes Section.
I have made one small change to the recipe. I am going to use Grapeseed Oil instead of Olive Oil, since I currently don’t have any Olive Oil on my workbench. I hope you don’t have a soap crisis in your house!
SUPPLIES
IngredientsShea Butter, Refined |
EquipmentScale |
Time spent: Weighing time: 8 minutes Adding lye to Herbal Tea: 5 seconds, followed by 60 seconds of stirring Heating of oils time: 2 minutes Pouring lye solution into the fat mixture: 5 seconds Using immersion blender to mix soap solution: 2 minutes Mix oat flour into the soap solution: 45 seconds Pour into mold: 30 seconds Allow soap to rest: 24 hours |
Recipe in ounces: 5 oz wt Shea Butter, Refined 15 oz wt Grapeseed Oil 30 oz wt Palm Kernel Oil 30 oz wt Palm Oil11.25 oz wt Lye (sodium hydroxide) 20 to 30 fluid oz herbal tea1/4 cup Fine Oat Flour 1 fl oz Honey Almond Fragrance Oil |
Make herbal tea as for drinking. Measure and set aside. Grind oatmeal to a fine flour. Measure 1/4 cup. Set aside.
Measure oils on your scale. Warm on the stove or in the microwave. Bring temperature to near 120 °F. Exact temperature is not critical. Add sodium hydroxide to the herbal tea. Mix well. Allow to cool to near 120 °F. Once again, exact temperature is not critical.
Combine oils and lye solution. Stir until thin trace. Add 1/4 cup oatmeal flour. Adding the oatmeal slowly while continuously stirring will help prevent lumping. Stir out any lumps. Upon trace add the Honey Almond Fragrance Oil. Stir well. Pour soap into molds. Allow to sit until soap is firm. Depending on the depth of the mold this will happen in 6 to 36 hours. Deeper molds allow for faster firming.
Cut into bars. Stack to allow good air circulation. Allow to cure for several days before using. Longer curing will result in a harder bar.
Notes & Comments:
This bar has a good fragrance with gentle exfoliating from the oatmeal. Color will be creamy. The bar will be hard.
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Oatmeal & Honey Almond Soap,
That is a really nice soap cutter! Could you tell me where I might be able to buy one and what size does that cut your bars! I would love to cut my soap that quickly instead of one bar at a time with my single cutter.
Hi all,
So I tried my first batch of cold process soap and after I mixed the Lye with the oils I think it started to trace. The color went from translucent to opaque and w/ a little resistance as I stirred it. But it never got thick like the images above. It stayed creamy; it covered the back of a spoon like frosted glass & would drip back into the batter and disappear instantly. Now let me back up. When I mix the water & lye in the beginning the temp got to 150 F & I waited a while before introducing the oils because the recipe said to let both solutions cool to about 110 F. But when I read the directions some people said they would make the lye solution in the morning and make soap at night. So I waited about 45 min and the temp dropped to 80 F. (Okay so first time using lye and I thought it would take forever to cool) so I went ahead and warmed the oils so they were just melted. In the end I wasn’t sure if it would work so I went ahead & put the soap in the molds. It’s now 6pm and I started making soap at 2pm & they are still pretty liquidy. If I screwed this recipe up what could I do to correct it or insure I won’t mess up future batches & what are some creative ways to dispose of the liquid soap? (Maybe laundry soap????)
Thanks for anyones help,
Jaime 🙂
Jamie,
Go back to the beginning of the cold process posts and read forward. Don’t mix up instructions from various sites. Just do the process as I have outlined here on the blog. You will get soap perfectly. As the blog progresses toward today, you will see some changes in batch size and various ingredient changes. These will accompany your improving skills as you learn to make soap.
Just follow TheSage way and you won’t have a problem.
How many bars does this recipe make and what is the total cost to make this?