I bought a bag of bright red cranberry seeds last year, and found them in the back of my cupboard just in time to make a Cranberry Sauce soap as my second Christmas soap for 2014. These pretty reddish bars are bright and spicy, and feature a sprinkling of pretty cranberry seeds on top.
These bars get their red hue from a blend of red iron oxide and Australian Pink Clay. You can really use any red clay you’ve got, though, or just use more red iron oxide, to get a red hue you’re happy with. I don’t recommend trying any botanical extracts, though, as they’re notorious for shifting to brown or black during saponification.
For essential oils I’ve chosen orange and cinnamon, the two predominant flavours and scents in my homemade cranberry sauce every Christmas. They blend to create a bright, warm and spicy citrus scent that’s wonderfully reminiscent of the holidays.
A sprinkle of cranberry seeds tops the bars and wraps things up. I elected not to mix the seeds into the bars as they are rather viscous looking, and I thought they’d be a bit too scratchy to be pleasant. The resulting bars are a nice, soft shade of red, lather wonderfully, and smell divine. A perfect Christmas gift, if I do say so myself.
Cranberry Sauce Soap
25% olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada)
25% refined coconut oil (USA / Canada)
30% beef tallow
15% unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada)
5% castor oil (USA / Canada)Per 500g (1.1lbs) of oils:
- 1 tbsp white kaolin clay (USA / Canada)
- 1 tsp titanium dioxide
- ½ tsp red iron oxide
- 1 ½ tsp Australian Pink Clay or 1 tsp Australian red reef clay or just use 1½ tsp red iron oxide total
- 15g orange essential oil
- 15g cinnamon bark essential oil
- Cranberry seeds, for sprinkling (optional)
2020 update: Given the irritation potential for cinnamon essential oil, I’d recommend using a cinnamon-y fragrance oil rather than the essential oil. Please refer to supplier documentation for maximum usage rates for the particular fragrance oil you’re using when used in soap/rinse-off products.
Use SoapCalc to calculate your final amounts of oils, lye, and water based on the size of batch you want to make.
Follow my standard soap making instructions. Once you reach a medium trace (like pudding), blend in the clay, titanium dioxide, red iron oxide, Australian clay, and essential oils. Bring the batter back to a medium trace.
Pour the batter into your prepared mould, tapping it on the counter to knock out any air bubbles. Sprinkle the top with cranberry seeds, if using. Lightly insulate your mould and let saponify for 24 hours before slicing.
Let age for 3–4 weeks before using or gifting.
Hi Marie,
That sounds great! I got into the soapmaking spree! Your blog is really a great help 🙂 I am afraid that everybody will get a piece of soap this Christmas 😉
Do got any tips on how to keep your soapbars ‘fresh’? How do I need to store the pieces?
Thank you very much!
Greetings,
Selma
Hi Selma! Everybody I know gets soap for Christmas, too 🙂 They tell me they like it, haha.
I like to leave my soaps to age right up until use/gifting—the longer a bar ages, the harder it will be and the longer it will last once it is in use. The trade-off is the loss of scent over time, though. If you want to keep more scent after 3–4 weeks of aging you can wrap the bars in clingfilm 🙂
Awesome Marie! I love it! I have powdered cranberry…would that be safe to add to the soap? I’m now looking for pink clay and red oxide. 😀
Hi Cathryn! My concern about the powdered cranberry would be colour change—most botanical extracts turn some form of brown or black during saponification. I’d want to test it before committing to a full batch 🙂
Ooooooooooooo Gotcha! Maybe that’s what happened with a trial batch of soap I made two days ago. I used paprika–hoping for a reddish-orangish color for the soap and it turned dark, dark brown.
So now I need to find some cranberry seeds, red oxide and pink clay. 😀
PS: Did you know your soap recipes translate beautifully for hot processed soaps?
Saponification—the endlessly interesting/frustrating variable!
I’m always glad to hear my recipes work well for hot process—thanks!
What amount of paprika did you use? I used 2 tbs. for 32 oz of oils and it turned a nice reddish color. Although I can tell if I had added more it could’ve turned a darker color. May have to do with what oils it is blended with. Good question…
Hello! Just wanted to say I love your blog! Ever since researching into the harsh chemicals found in most products, I’ve found a passion for wanting to make my own products. Your site is very useful and inspiring!
Thank you for taking the time to share all of your creations with us!
And I had a quick question… What are your guidelines for reposting your posts/recipes? Is it okay if the recipe is altered a bit (or the same) for example? Or would you prefer we just link back to your original post and/or give you credit? Thanks for your time!
Hi Lex! Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me 🙂
I am super, SUPER against having my recipes re-posted around the internet. I provide everything for free, but spend a lot of time and money developing my recipes, so I do ask that people at least visit my website to read them! If you want to discuss some changes on your blog that’s totally ok, but I would prefer that you sent people to me for the original/full recipe. Thanks for asking!
Thank you for your reply! & I understand that completely. I will only post my own personal recipes I come up with, none of yours. I respect your opinion on the matter.
Your website is great for starting DIY!! So much to learn! It’ll be fun to experiment and come up with my own recipes. Thank you for the inspiration!!
Thanks, Lex! Feel free to tweet me with your blog entries so I can check them out 🙂
Very beautiful soap and yummy looking too. Great inspiration. I need to make one too asap!
I recently purchased Sea Buckthorn oil! So exited. Will try to make something really precious with it (lip balm or hard-lotion bar?).
Just made it!!!! Will show pictures tomorrow 🙂
Awesome! Can’t wait to see 🙂
I call it Frosted Cherry Blossom (sprinkled unsweetened coconut shreds on top)! 🙂 Still curing! I used that lard again and thought would keep it in the mold a bit longer this time. http://itmages.com/image/view/2045376/820eccd4
Thank you for the link to the acne serum! I know that seabukthorn oil is very good for any skin impurities. It is also wonderful for ulcers and such, inside your body. I got the whooping 125g! I love seabuckthorn jam, my grandma used to make a lot of it for winter time when flu/cold season hits.
Beautiful! I love the name 🙂
Nice, and I LOVE your mold!
🙂
Thanks, Iryna! Be sure to check out my seabuckthorn acne serum 🙂
here is my blog-post –
http://irishagold.blogspot.com/2014/11/new-soap-and-purchase.html
Thanks! I feel so honoured to be mentioned 🙂
Hi Marie!
Just letting you know I colour one of my melt and pour soaps with powdered cranberry extract (from New Directions Australia) and have no problem with the colour. It looks very similar to yours. Can’t vouch for other methods.
Thanks, Jane! Because M&P soaps don’t go through saponification you have a lot more plant extract/petal colouring options—you’d likely be able to use beetroot and rosehip powder as well with no problems 🙂
Yup! That’s one of the reasons I like this method! Just putting my two bob’s worth in for us M&Pers!!!! Cheers!
Awesomesauce 🙂
Hi! I am a bit…obsessed…with soap making but I’ve been having some issues with it. I feel that 1 out of every 5 batches works exactly how I want it to. I use a pretty standard recipe for most of my soaps (unless I’m doing shampoo bars) but it’s always a gamble if it will work. Many times, the exact same recipe that worked perfectly one day will be goopy the next day. Do you have similar experiences? All I can think is that it’s the weather, but it would be much consolation if I knew an experienced soap maker experienced the same thing.
Thank you! Your blog inspires me so much and keeps me creating! 🙂
Hi Mia! So… this is really strange. I have honestly never had problems like this, especially using recipes I’ve had success with before, and I soap all year round. What is your standard recipe? Are you changing anything? Are you certain your scale is accurate? You shouldn’t have to soap like it’s the lottery 😉
My recipe that I had a lot of luck with was 40% olive oil, 20% coconut oil, 10% castor, 15% shea and 15% lard with a 2% superfat. It made a bar that firmed up really wonderfully and reached trace easily (I hate sitting there for hours just waiting for it to thicken up). Then, I used the same recipe and replaced the lard with palm oil (yes, yes, organic, sustainable and fair trade palm oil 😉 ) and it worked even better! So, I tried to exact same recipes again and for some reason, they didn’t come out as well. Really, I’ll just keep trying. It might be that I’m in a hurry sometimes and measure things really quickly. It won’t stop me from creating or anything. 🙂 Thank you so much!
Hi Mia, I am a new soaper too. Lard really gives me a challenge, but not the palm oil. I usually superfat at 5-6%. And try (really, it is hard to measure exactly!) to weigh everything correctly and bring mixes to the same temperature. Sodium Lactate helps to harden the bar.
I keep forgetting to use it though! 🙂
Keep on soaping! Cheers!
I think my biggest problem is that I can’t just follow a recipe (it has nothing to do with your recipes, Marie!) I just feel the need to tweak things a bit and make it my own creation. Sometimes things work out fantastically and other times not as much. I guess that’s the fun of it. 😉
That might do it 😛 If you aren’t re-calculating your tweaks, you’ll definitely have serious issues with consistent success!
🙂
It doesn’t sound like it’s the fault of the recipe here, so I would definitely pay closer attention to your process 🙂
I’m sure that’s it. I just get excited and start working too quickly! 😉
🙂
Thanks to Marie’s stupendous advice, I use a good lye calculator first whenever I feel the need to tweak a recipe here and there. The lye calculator will tell me if the oils and fats are compatible. I look at the hardness scale, the creamy/bubbly factor, and the iodine factor. I have a loaf of soap that I thought I could improve by tweaking that will not harden whatsoever and it’s been 24 weeks since it’s been poured. After 8 weeks and it still didn’t harden, I ran the recipe through the lye calculator. The hardness scale was so low, it’s not surprising it’s still soft. I also learned to make sample batches first whenever I try a new recipe so I’m not wasting ingredients. And finally, I’ve learned to note down ALL changes in a notebook so I can go back and figure things out. THAT lesson is one I learned the hard way when I didn’t write down the changes to a body butter that turned out fantastic.
*grins* Life is a learning lesson or two…or many.
All fantastic lessons—most of which I’ve learned the hard way as well!
Hello,
I’m curious why you always go with 15% shea butter in your bars. And is that refined or unrefined? Also could you substitute if with something else? Or do less of it and some of something else?
Thank you.
Hi Dolphy! I just really love the effect of shea butter in my soap. I’ve played with lots of other variations and always end up coming back to it (usually unrefined—whatever’s cheapest). I have used avocado oil as an alternative, but do watch your hardness numbers in SoapCalc if you do—you may find you want to increase the percentage of tallow to get a harder bar.
You’re amazing! Lots of information and inspiration. My latest and greatest colour scheme inspiration. Fantastic!
Thanks Marie.
Thanks, Terry!
I’m not a fan of titanium dioxide. Can I just leave it out?
In this recipe you can, though there’s really no reason not to—the risk with TD is inhalation, and it’s pretty hard to inhale anything out of a bar of soap 😛
Hello Marie,
First of all, thank you for generously sharing so many wonderful recipes to us diyers; they are so great!
I recently made some carrot soap using carrot puree (that I made) that I added at trace, and the result was a nice orange bar. Do you think I could make the same using beet root puree and get a nice red bar?
Thank you for all the inspiration.
Warm regards, Ana
Hi Ana! From my reading beetroot has a tendency to turn brown/black during saponification, but I haven’t tried it myself. Let me know if you do 🙂
Hello Marie!
I need some help and you’re always so helpful…
Is there a way to know if a soap is safe? i did this:
525 coconut
435 shea
535 almond
425olive
325 water
237 lye.
I stupidly trusted the soapers recipe without running it through mms lye calc or soapcalc. After I did run the recipe water and lye are very low. When i added the lye solution to the soap it automatically siezed on me (NIGHTMARE!!!). I was wondering if i can rebatch this 9cook it?) and make embeds or a weird loaf or something because killing shea butter kills me! (soapers ocd).
Thanks for always being at our side…
Dorey
Hi Dorey! It looks like the recipe you made is superfatted at about 16%, which is really high. The water content is also suuuuuuuuuper low, as you discovered. Did you ever reach trace? Was the soap able to saponify? Does it pass the zap test? If it passes the zap test your next step will be to use it really, really fast as all those unsaponified fats will likely go rancid on you pretty quickly.
Zap test approved! (gross, lol. Doing this always reminds me of The sandlot…) It just instanstly seized when the stick blender hit it for 7 seconds. So I’ll try rebatching this then, I guess, and see what happens in a few weeks. Does this sound ok? how do oils go rancid? do they stink or turn green or…??
Sounds like a plan 🙂 Rancid oils just smell “off”, I’m sure you’ve smelled rancid oils before in the form of a really old tube of lipstick or a bag of chips you dug out of the back of a cupboard. Nothing super gross or dangerous, it’s just that the fat has oxidized.
Ewe. yes, I have smelled that! thank you very much! I rebatched it and it’s wondrful so far!
Phew!
Is the amount of cinnamon bark essential oil safe in this recipe? By my conversion, it is about .5 ounce per pound of oils. I’ve read that cinnamon bark is a skin irritant.
Hi Heather! I’ve found the irritation rules don’t apply in soap—for cinnamon, at least. Between saponification, aging, and the fact that the EO is rinsed off your skin very quickly, I’ve never found bars containing cinnamon EO to be irritating.
May I ask is there anywhere in Calgary that you can buy direct from the wholesaler-for coconut oil (18kg or so) and sodium hydroxide (50 lb bag) and not from Soap and more…and maybe even tallow? I used to be able to buy it direct in BC ,but am having trouble finding a place in Calgary?
Thank you!
Hi Margot! I have no experience with them, but you might want to look into Univar 🙂
You can infuse yellow dock root in olive oil for a couple of weeks to obtain this various shades of this color. Strain, then add some of the infused oil at trace. Comes out LOVELY!
Thanks so much for the tip! I’ve never seen yellow dock root for sale, but I will definitely keep an eye out now 🙂
Love your cranberry soap!
Mountain Rose Herbs has yellow dock root, but you can also wildcraft it easily (there are tutorials online), as it’s a very common “weed”. I just made YDR soap earlier tonight!!! The fun part is watching the yellow infusion turn shades of peach, pink or red when the lye solution is added.
😀
OOoh, cool! I’ll have to keep an eye out for some, that sounds like a super fun thing to play with 😀
Love this recipe how much soap base would i use for a melt and pour lot
I’m afraid I’ve never used a melt & pour soap base, so I can’t be of much help. As much as you want, I guess? And scale the additives, assuming the soap base has more in it than just the oils?
What can I replace tallow for? To reach in the end as similar result as possible :). Thanks 🙂
I’ve written an entire blog on this 🙂
Hello Maria: I love your soap recipe. I have two so far that I wanted to make, this one and the Lavender Vanilla soap.
Still kinda new to the cold process, I have a question on the oil measurement. When you indicated the percentage for the oil measurement, how does this convert to grams? And how many pounds of soap this recipe would make? Thanks in advance.
Tiffany
Hey Tiffany! Thanks for reading and DIYing with me 🙂 I’ve written a few FAQs to answer your questions 🙂
Thanks Maria, I got it all figured out now..:)) Can’t wait to make them. You have so many other recipes on your blog, I know I will have tons of fun exploring them… Have a pleasant day…..
Happy making! 🙂
Hi Marie, I’m planning on making this soap and was wondering if I could add some pureed cooked cranberries to this? Would the sugars in the cranberries cause it to overheat? I’ve made soaps with food before, avocado soap and a pumpkin spice. Also I’m planning on adding cranberry fragrance oil. What are your thoughts on that?
I’ve always used responsibly sourced organic palm oil in my recipes instead of lard. I get really nice hard bars after only 4 weeks of curing. I guess it matters where you live. I’m here in southern california about 2 miles from the beach.
thanks
Hey Frann! You could add some cranberry puree, but it is going to turn a murky brown during saponification, like pretty much all botanical things do. I’m not sure if that’s the effect you want, but in my mind brown doesn’t equate with cranberry sauce 😛 I rarely work with fragrance oils, so I can’t speak to that. And yes, the drier your environment, the faster your soap will age!
I use essential oils mostly but for a smell I can’t get any other way I wanted to try it. Maybe also add some citrus and cinnamon. I surely don’t want my soap to turn a murky brown color so I will leave the cranberries out. Thanks Marie
Yeah, sadly fruit scents are pretty far out of the range of EOs other than the citrus ones. Sigh. I put orange juice, cinnamon, and cloves in my cranberry sauce, so that’s where the scent blend for mine came from 🙂
I have seen cranberry seeds in various products that you make and wondering where your source is for them. I tried Amazon and ordered a seed packet, but I would be hard pressed to get 1/2 tsp out of that little packet. I so want to make the soap and the facial mask for gifts. Thanks
Mine are from Saffire Blue, but their shipping is quite a bit more than Amazon’s (usually at least $20), so you’d probably want to order quite a lot of things from them if you go that route (not that it’s hard!).
Thank you, I appreciate your time in answering and all your DIY projects. All my trialshave turned out well. Thank you!
You’re very welcome! Happy making 🙂
Hi Marie, I love your blog and recipes and your new book is out of this world! My daughter is loving the masks.
I have 2 questions.
1. I’m about to order some cranberry seeds from Brambleberry. They come in 1oz or 16oz sizes. About how much do you think you sprinkled on top?
2. How did the seeds fare with moisture. Was there any mold issue?
Thank you!!!!!
Hey Rachel! I am so glad you are loving my book 😀 For the seeds—definitely get the smaller amount! I’m not sure any mortal human could use 16oz in a lifetime LOL. I’m sure I used much less than an ounce of seeds for this. And no, no mould issues—everything dries out super fast here in dry-like-a-desert Calgary 😛
Thanks Marie!!!
Would you recommend the cassia or ceylon variety of cinnamon oil for soap making?
Mine is ceylon and I prefer it as it smells much more like true cinnamon; I find the cassia variety smells like those candy cinnamon hearts instead of pie 🙂
Hi Marie, where did you get the cranberry seeds? Can I use cranberry seeds, as in the ones you plant (I’m sure they’re the same thing, but will they be a pretty ruby color?)? Im in the USA(figured I’d throw that in there in case your source for the cranberry seeds only ships within Canada)
Also wondering, can I subsitute Cinnamon Bark Absolute for the Essential Oil? Thanks! Happy Holidays!
I was able to get them at Brambleberry
Mine are from Saffire Blue, but I wouldn’t recommend them as a source. You do not want to use planting seeds as those ones can sprout! Cosmetic grade seeds have been treated so they won’t start growing haha. I’m afraid I haven’t worked with cinnamon bark absolute; I’d ask your supplier 🙂