I’ve got another Natural and Palm-free soap for you. Today we will be making soap with Lavender essential oils. Now I know that some of you may think that lavender is just for old ladies…but this is not the case! This recipe with oatmeal is fragrant and softening and will give you all the benefits of the essential oil. Making it a perfect one for night-time baths and for cracked or irritated skin.
The fragrance, in this case, is Lavender essential oil and we are also going to add 1 tablespoon (25g) of oatmeal. So let’s get started!
Weigh all the hard oils into a large plastic bowl and melt them. A microwave is handy but you can do this in a pot if you prefer. Add the liquid oils and leave to cool.
Make up the lye solution. To get detailed instructions on how to do this, grab my guide to making your first soap here.
Make sure you are wearing your goggles and gloves. Weigh out your lye and then weigh out your water in a separate container. Add the lye to the water and stir for a few minutes. Cover and then leave to cool in a safe place.
Weigh out your fragrance and oatmeal.
So now you should have a bowl with your cooled oils (around 25-30 degrees celcius) and your container with cooled lye.
Pour the lye solution into the oils. Be careful not to splash any liquid up.
Blend with a stick blender until you reach trace. This is when you can see a faint trace of soap mixture on the surface when you drizzle the soap mix in. you don’t want it to be too thick at this stage as we will be mixing even more in the next stage.
Add the lavender essential oil. Depending on what type of lavender essential oil you use, adding the fragrance can slow down the chemical reaction taking place. So don’t be surprised if you still need to blend quite a lot.
You can add the oatmeal at this stage too.
Keep mixing with the blender until the soap is thick enough, then pour into your mould. I’m using a mould with a silicone liner but if you are using a wooden mould, make sure to line it in advance.
I like to texture the tops of my soap. I’m just using a spoon to make a pattern on the top of the soap. If your soap is too fluid to keep the shape, then you need to leave it a little while longer before you start. Or just leave it flat if you like it this way.
I’m adding a little lavender on top of the soap as decoration. Don’t be tempted to add lavender into the soap itself. It will go brown and look like mouse droppings! You can read my mistakes here!
Leave for round 24hrs and then cut into bars. You don’t need to have a soap cutter, you can just cut the soap with a knife. If you turn the lavender side down and to the side, you will minimise the drag marks caused by the lavender buds either way.
Don’t they look cute? These little bars are
Leave the bars on a shelf or other safe, dry place for 4-6 weeks until they are ready to use.
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