Blueberry Superfruit Soap

Finished soap.

Yesterday I shared my adventure of making the Acai Superfruit Soap. In a way this soap is a continuation of that adventure, because when I pulled the tea out of the cupboard I also grabbed the Blueberry Harvest Herbal Tea from Bigelow Tea. I decided that since I was going to make an Acai themed soap, I would also make a Blueberry themed soap. As you can probably guess, I’m going to use Blueberry Butter and Red Grape & Blueberry Fragrance Oil.

Blueberries don’t grow well in our alkaline soils, but I do enjoy the rare treat of fresh blueberries. This soap allows that enjoyment of these scrumptious berries to be a year round treat for the skin!

Collect needed items:

Ingredients
Blueberry Butter
Sweet Almond Oil
Coconut Oil
Palm Oil
Sunflower Oil
Sodium Hydroxide
Water
Blueberry Harvest Herbal Tea from Bigelow Tea
Red Grape & Blueberry Fragrance Oil

Equipment
Scale
Soap Spoon
Gloves
Mold of your choice (I used Dirk’s Guerrilla Soap Mold)
Immersion Blender

Time spent:
Weighing time: 8 minutes
Adding lye to Blueberry Harvest Herbal Tea: 20 seconds, followed by 60 seconds of stirring
Heating of oils time: 2 minutes
Pouring lye solution into the fat mixture: 15 seconds
Using immersion blender to mix soap solution: 3 minutes
Pour into mold: 10 seconds
Allow soap to rest: 24 hours

Recipe in ounces:
4 ounces Blueberry Butter
4 ounces Sweet Almond Oil
8 ounces Coconut Oil
8 ounces Palm Oil
8 ounces Sunflower Oil2 Blueberry Harvest Herbal Tea from Bigelow Tea
12 fl oz water
2.25 oz Sodium Hydroxide0.56 ounces Red Grape & Blueberry Fragrance Oil

Completely measured fixed oils.

Just like the Acai Superfruit soap that I showed you yesterday, I prepared the tea the day before I made the soap. I used 13 ounces of water and 2 tea bags. I allowed the tea to steep for about 45 minutes and then I refrigerated the tea until the next day when I would have enough time to make soap. The next day I removed the tea from the refrigerator and allowed it to come to room temperature before doing anything else.

Measure the fixed oils on your scale. Warm on the stove or in the microwave. I melted the fixed oils in the microwave. It took about 2 minutes in my microwave to melt all of the oils.

Brewed Blueberry tea.

As the oils are melting in the microwave, add sodium hydroxide to the tea. Mix well. Since I had already made the Acai Superfruit soap, I had an idea that the tea would change color when the sodium hydroxide was added. I was right, but this time the color change didn’t worry me! 😉 At first, the lye solution was a olive green color and after the solution was completely mixed it settled on being a brownish-orange color.

Adding the sodium hydroxide to the tea.

Combine the fixed oils and lye solution. Stir until thin trace. For me, this took almost 2 minutes to reach the thin trace. After the soap reached this point I added the fragrance and mixed well. Once the fragrance was completely mixed into the raw soap, I poured the soap into the Guerrilla Soap Mold. I allowed the soap to sit until was firm.

The next morning the soap was 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.

Stirring the lye solution.

Notes:
This soap was firm when I removed it from the mold after 24 hours. I sliced the soap into bars and was very surprised to find that the brownish-purple raw soap had a pinkish-brown color. I love this odd coloration and I’ll have to say that it is a great color.

Completely mixed lye solution.

This soap smells just like a mixed berry syrup without being extremely sweet, I bet this fragrance would be a favorite of kids especially when named, “Berry Blast” or “Berry Twisted Ice Cream.” Gee, just coming up with these names makes me want to act like a kid again. (Just for the fun dessert names!)

Tomorrow Taylor will take a turn at this microphone and share the beginning of her latest experiment that will cover two days. I think you will definitely find this interesting!

Enjoy!