Beauty (shower) bar

Difficulty: Intermediate
Time: 1 hr
Yields: 1200 g soap or 10 bars of soap to fit a large loaf mold

As I often explain in my classes, don’t put in expensive oils in your soaps, because soap is a cleansing product, which is to be rinsed off and you’d be literally flushing your money down the drain! Think of it, a bar of soap will last how many showers? Fifty? Hundred? And each time you only use the tiniest sliver of your bar of soap, which after lathering your skin, you will rinse off again, because you don’t want any soap left on your skin. Soap is not a leave-on product, it’s a rinse-off product. So keep all the expensive oils and ingredients for your moisturisers and balms, and for your soaps, concentrate on cleansing properties, which not only includes lathering qualities and hardness of a bar of soap, but also mildness, exfoliation, antiseptic, circulation boosting or astringent properties, just to mention a few.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t make a good soap! The special blend of essential oils I created for this Beauty (shower) Bar are known for their skin-loving properties and yet are still affordable. The soap also contains 70% olive oil, which is known to make good quality, long lasting bars of gentle cleaning bars of soap. However, a soap made of pure olive oil has a very long curing time and doesn’t really lather well, so I’ve added coconut oil to give it hardness and a nice fluffy lather. The benefit of adding shea butter to the soap is that it contains emollient and moisturising polyphenols that can’t be converted into soap, making it a great additive to soap. Cocoa butter shares similar skin-loving properties as shea butter, adding conditioning and nourishing qualities to the soap. And for mildness, I’ve increased the superfat of this soap to 8%. The only problem with this is that it also increases the risk of DOS (dreaded orange spots), so make sure you follow the instructions carefully and store your soap correctly (dry place, away from humidity!).

Before starting, please read the safety and precautions post, especially since this tutorial requires the handling of caustic soda!

If you have never made cold-process soap before, I strongly recommend you check out the basic cold process soap tutorial first.

PREPARATION: Measure out the following essential oil blend:

• 15 ml rose geranium essential oil
• 12 ml lemongrass essential oil
• 5 ml bergamot essential oil
• 5 ml sweet orange essential oil
• 3 ml spearmint essential oil

Rose geranium is an all-round skin oil, which, in my opinion, doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Applied to the skin, it helps balance the sebum production of the skin, making it beneficial to both dry and oily skins, and its antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and cell regenerative properties have proven it valuable for a range of skin problems. I’ve added lemongrass because I love the fresh, lemon-y scent of lemongrass, but also for its tonic and astringent properties, which leaves your skin radiant and glowing. Both lemongrass and bergamot act as deodorisers, and, in addition, bergamot supports the sebum balancing property of rose geranium. Sweet orange is a great essential oil against stress, and not just mental stress. It helps combat stressed skin, boosts circulation, yet also calms the skin at the same time. And lastly spearmint, similar to peppermint, is a wonderful for sensitive and irritated skins. If you don’t have spearmint, you can easily substitute for peppermint, although personally I prefer the fragrance of spearmint in this blend. If you are looking for essential oils, Pure Nature has high quality essential oils at reasonable prices.

ONE: Prepare your lye as usual and leave to cool down to room temperature. Because this soap contains 70% olive oil, I added 2 teaspoons of sodium lactate, which is a natural additive, to my lye solution to make the soap harder and reduce curing time.

TWO: Weigh out the coconut oil, shea butter, and cocoa butter, and heat in the microwave until the oils have melted.

THREE: Add the olive oil to the now liquid coconut oil and butters, and give it a good stir.

FOUR: Once your lye solution has cooled down to room temperature, add the lye to the oils. If your oils are still very warm, let it cool down a little. It’s ok if it’s a little warmer than usual, but it shouldn’t be more than 30-32 degrees Celsius.

Use your stick blender to mix the lye/oil blend until it has emulsified.

FIVE: Add the essential oil blend and keep mixing with the stick blender until the soap has thickened to a medium trace. Pour the soap into the mould.

Use a spoon to add texture to the top of your soap and sprinkle a few rose petals over the surface.

SIX: Let the soap cure for a couple of days before unmoulding, and then let it harden for another few days before cutting it into bars. The bars of soap will need a further 6-8 weeks to cure before they are ready for use.

Because of the high superfat content of the soap and the addition of essential oils, this soap is more at risk of DOS (dreaded orange spot) than usual. To avoid these pesky DOS, make sure you cure and store the soap in a dry place with good air circulation, away from humidity.