My First Christmas Soap

So a couple weeks ago I made a start on some Christmas soap, which I find super exciting as I love Christmas… who doesn’t, right!?  I started off thinking of scents I wanted and sent off for the essential oils I wanted, and figured colour-wise red white and green – obviously mega christmassy!  To get those I have red iron oxide, french green clay and titanium dioxide.

The Basic soap recipe –

300g Olive Oil

225g Coconut Oil

112g Palm Oil

75g Cocoa Butter

38g Sweet Almond Oil

Additives –

Red Iron Oxide

French Green Clay

Titanium Dioxide

Kaolin Clay

Essential Oils –

Scotch Pine

Sweet Orange

Anise

I melted my hard oils – which smelled divine due to the cocoa butter!  And mixed in the liquid oils.  I made up the lye water and let both cool to about the same temperature.  While they cooled I put the three colourants into three plastic cups and blended them with a little of the soaping oils.  I also blended my essential oils until I was happy with the scent – be warned anise is a very dominant essential oil.  I popped the lye water in the soaping oils, blending them together to a light trace, adding the essential oil blend at this point.  Then I decanted some of the mixture into the cup with french green clay blending until incorporated and I was happy with the colour.  With the leftover batter in the tub I blended in some kaolin clay then decanted some into the red oxide cup, adding the titanium dioxide to the rest of the soap mixture.

I layered the white red and green throughout my mould..

– which was new, so I quickly discovered that I had a little bit too much soap for my mould.

So the red dribbled over the edge a bit but I kept mounding the soap up into peaks, leaving my loaf to set up overnight and cut it the next day with my shiney new wire cheese cutter!  And the look of the soap was exactly what I was looking for – I did a light spoon swirl also (adding to the mess!).

I haven’t yet tested these out as they need a little more curing but I’m looking forward to it and continuing to devise new and exciting (to me anyway) Christmas soaps to make soon to give to friends and family so stay tuned!!