Cold Process Soap Making

Styled by MARÉ BRENNAN
Photograph by KELLY MOORE CLARK

This Green French Clay Soap detoxifies, hydrates, and calms skin with rich cow’s milk, organic coconut oil, soothing essential oils, and mineral-rich clay. While it may be more labor intensive to mill your own soap, there is something deeply satisfying knowing exactly what ingredients are used and seeing the little soaps pop out of their molds. 

WHAT YOU NEED:

Silicone mold (we used one with floral patterns)

Stick mixer & Whisk

1 1/8 cup Coconut oil

1 1/8 cup Olive oil

1/3 cup Sodium Hydroxide Lye

2/3 cup Milk (frozen into cubes)

Lemongrass essential oil – 24 drops

Tea Tree essential oil – 20 drops

2 tsp French Green Clay mixed into 

2 TBSP distilled water

1/2 tsp Titanium Dioxide mixed into 1/2 TBSP of Sunflower oil

When making soap, safety is important. Always work in a well-ventilated area and wear gloves and goggles.

Lye Prep: With safety gear on, slowly add about 1/4 of the lye flakes directly to the frozen milk. Stir with a non-reactive spoon. The flakes will melt the milk. After a few minutes of stirring, add another 1/4 of the flakes and continue to stir. Continue this process until all lye is dissolved fully in milk.

Fully melt and combine coconut oil and olive oils. Once the oils have cooled to 130 degrees or below, add the milk and lye solution slowly to the oils. As you add the milk, begin pulsing your stick blender. Adding the lye and milk solution gradually can help prevent false trace or the soap appearing to saponify too quickly.

Once all the lye solution has been added, continue to blend until thin trace. Next, whisk in the essential oils.

Add all of the French green clay and water mixture. Pulse the soap with the stick blender to get rid of the clumps. Add 1 teaspoon of the dispersed titanium dioxide and sunflower oil mixture. If your soap is still a thin trace, stick blend in the titanium dioxide. If your soap is getting thick, use a whisk to fully mix in.

The soap needs to be a thin enough texture to pour into the mold cavities and to fill the small details of the silicone flowers. Blend with stick mixer but don’t over blend.

Once you’ve reached a good medium texture, slowly pour the soap into each mold. Fill each mold to the top. Once each mold is full, tap it gently on the counter to help even the soap and get rid of air bubbles.

Allow the soap to stay in the molds for 1-2 days. Check the soap by gently pulling away the silicone mold from the sides. If it releases without any tearing, attempt to break the airlock on the bottom by gently pushing the soap out. 

Hunt Slonem bunny dish holds handmade French clay soaps. Colorful hand towel and bunny dish available at Material Things.