Last September Margo, a reader and fellow clay aficionado, commented to tell me about this clay bar she used to buy at Sephora. It was just straight clay, in bar form, and it was nearly $50. Yipes! Margo quickly figured out that she could make her own for a lot less, and I loved that idea. It’s taken me a while to get to it, but here we are. This French green clay bar is spiked with some of my favourite face mask goodies, and I think you’ll like it.
The basic clay blend is equal parts French Green and Kaolin. French Green clay has been my favourite clay for some time, and Kaolin is really growing on me after some stunning performances in things like my silver powder. Both pack a good, cleansing punch, and are relatively smooth, meaning the bar doesn’t feel like a glob of gravel on your face.
To the clay I’ve added a bit of zinc oxide, which helps aid healing and sooth irritated skin, and can be useful in the fight against acne. I’ve also added a wee bit of allantoin (USA / Canada), a naturally-occurring skin conditioning and healing agent that I’m smitten with as of late.
I chose three favourite ingredients to turn this powdery mix into a paste—witch hazel, aloe vera juice, and a bit of melted unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada). Witch hazel is an astringent that helps fight acne and inflammation, and leaves your skin feeling tightened and refreshed. It also smells a bit like old socks, which is partly why I cut it with some aloe vera juice. Aloe vera is a great natural soothing and healing agent. And last but not least, a wee bit of melted unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada), to add a touch of oil-based moisture to keep the bar from being too drying on the skin.
The resulting French green clay bar is a great thing to have on hand for on-the-fly thin face mask style face washing, and it has the added benefit of having a delightfully long shelf life as long as you let it dry back out after use. If you don’t have the time for a weekly face mask, this bar just might be your new best friend.
Everyday French Green Clay Bar
1/3 cup French green clay
1/3 cup white kaolin clay (USA / Canada)
1 tbsp zinc oxide
1/8 tsp allantoin (USA / Canada) (optional) (I use these tiny measuring spoons for tiny measurements like this)2 tbsp witch hazel
2 tbsp aloe vera juice (not gel!)
8g | 0.28oz unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada), meltedTo start with, you’ll want a silicone mould—I used a soap mould, but something like a silicone cupcake liner or chocolate mould would also work. I chose silicone for its flexibility and non-stick wonders, for easy removal of the bar. If you don’t have anything I’d recommend a 1-cup measuring cup.
Line the bottom of your mould with a cut-to-size piece of parchment paper or wax paper for easy removal of the semi-dry bar.
Whisk the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Slowly add the liquid ingredients, stirring and eventually kneading everything together to form a stiff, sticky paste.
Press the paste into your mould, doing your best to get it all crammed in there and not all over everything else. Cover the sticky mess with some more parchment or wax paper, and press it down with something that’s roughly the same shape and surface area, like the bottom of a glass. Peel off the top parchment and leave the bar to dry for a few hours.
After a few hours you’ll be able to smooth the top of the bar down a bit more if you feel so inclined. Now it’s time to leave it for a few days. Depending on how dry your house is, after a day or three you’ll see notice the bar has pulled away from the edges of the mould entirely. At this point you can tip it out of the mould and set it on a wire rack to dry out the rest of the way. I’d give it at least a week, but if it looks and feels dry enough to you (it should be noticeably lighter without all the water in it, but it’ll still be pretty dense), that’s good enough for me 🙂
To use, wet your face, and wet one side of the bar by running it under the tap briefly—don’t worry about it crumbling, it’s really very sturdy. Rub the wet part of the bar on your face. The bar will dry out enough to stop gliding fairly fast—I find I have to re-wet it several times to get my entire face. You’ll wind up with a rather thin coating of clay on your face. Leave it to dry while you do other things—it’ll only take a few minutes. Wipe off with a damp washcloth and follow up with some argan oil. Done!
Fifty dollars for a clay bar?! That’s a rip off. I can buy that much clay at my local health food store for under five (they sell it in bulk).
I’m going to have to try a version of this! Thanks!
No kidding, eh? I was flat out aghast (and immediately set off to make my own, of course, haha).
Hi, realize this is an old post but I am just getting interested in making products for me and my daughter. Do you cool the melted shea butter before adding the other liquid ingredients and adding it to the solids? Just curious whether that affects the butter in any way. Thanks and keep up the awesome posts..Love your blog!
Hi Lisa! All the shea butter really needs to be is liquid, but not so hot that you’d burn yourself when you’re kneading everything together 🙂
Absolutely brilliant idea! I’ve been wanting to make masks in a bar, just wasn’t sure how to get it into bar form. I’m so excited now that I know how to make bars without using beeswax; it’s much easier than I thought.
Woohoo!
This sounds amazing! I’m so excited to try this!
I can’t wait to hear how it works out for you 🙂
Marie, this is perfect timing. I’ve been wanting a clay bar.
Has anyone let you know that New Directions Aromatics is looking for minimum purchase orders of USD$100, or they charge an additional fee of $20? So sad, because their selection is incredible.
Anyway, it’s kept me from finding some of the ingredients in many of your yummy works of art, and I’m so happy I have everything for this one on hand!
Thank you for all you do.
I’m so glad, Suzanne 🙂
The admin fee is newish to NDA, but their shipping has always been relatively high since their product margins are so low (generally $16–$20 no matter how much I order). So, their shipping has always been my “admin fee”—I’ll never order less than $150 from them at a time (maybe 2x a year) or the shipping just hurts way too much. Darn high Canadian shipping costs 🙁
Great idea! I’m so making this for travel!
🙂
i am allergic to aloe… can you replace it with honey or anything?
I’d just leave it out and use water instead 🙂
First time I hear about a clay bar but I really like the idea. Brilliant!!!
I can’t wait to make it and try it! but what about allantoin? What is it good for?
Thank you, Marie! I enjoy your recipes every time 🙂
Allantoin is found in comfrey and it is reported to accelerate cellular production and therefore healing.
Thanks, Dawn!
Hi Cristina! Allantoin is a rather unassuming white powder has weaseled its way into a lot of my projects this summer due to being awesome. Allantoin can be derived from a variety of natural things like comfrey, but is usually chemically synthesized (I am ok with this as it can also be derived from urine, and I’d prefer that not to be one of many possible “natural sources”). It’s a wonderful healer—it promotes cellular replication, encouraging the healing of burns and other booboos. Common in everything from lipstick to diaper creme to anti-acne products, it’s safe (0/10 on Skin Deep) and awesome.
What a great idea! You mention the clays are pretty smooth, but do you find this to have any exfoliating power or is it just meant to be a quick, on-the-fly mask?
Hi Sarah! I definitely find this has some exfoliating power, mostly in the putting-on and taking-off process 🙂
This is brilliant! I so have to try making this. Might just keep me in the habit of doing a mask once or twice a week like i want to do – cause sometimes it just doesn’t happen. 😀
Awesome! Let me know how it goes, I know I’m loving mine 🙂
Where do I buy all these ingredients? I’d love to make this asap.
Check the links in the big box above the comments 🙂
Thank you! this is wonderful, i never have time to do the whole mask thing it seems like.
this is perfect 😀
Woo! 🙂
Hi,
I love this recipe. I have to try it. I just recently started making my own skin care products and enjoy finding something as wonderful as your collection. I will be trying several of them. I was wondering were you bought the beautiful red spatula that you use and the blue silicone mould? I am trying to put together an assortment of tools and these would be great.
Hi Christina! The spatula is from Norpro off Amazon, and the blue silicone mould is a soap mould from New Directions Aromatics 🙂 Thanks for reading!
Awesome idea! Never heard of a clay bar before. I’m wondering if this will work with other clays? I only have French red clay and bentonite clay at the moment (I know…total departure from your recipe 😀 ). Will give it a go and see.
Marie, my name is Barb Prinz. I’m 64 years young. Mom of two grown daughters and have 1 grandson and 2 granddaughters.
I’m a subscriber and would like to thank you for your hard work making all the recipes. You are a blessing.
I made some of your thyme toner for myself and youngest daughter ( has adult acne) and it is working. She loves it. I made some for myself as well.
I have a question regarding the French green clay bar. Can I use bentonite and get the same results? Thank you for your time. Barb
Hi Barb! Thanks so much for reading and DIYing with me—your support means the world 🙂 As for swapping out the clays, I’m not certain bentonite would work as well. I’ve found bentonite to be a very heavy clay compared to French Green, and I worry you might have structural issues with it here. That said, there’s really no harm in trying! If it doesn’t work out you can just bash it up and use the powder for face masks 🙂
Hi Abiola! It should work with other clays, though I’m not entirely sure about bentonite. Both bentonite and rhassoul are quite a lot heavier than the French and Australian clays, so you may have crumbling issues there. Worth a go, though 🙂
Hello.
I really loved this recipe and made it right away.
After using it a couple of times, I have a few questions.
1. Since the bar will be in constant contact with water, I would like to know if the shea butter will go bad. Also, I had made your scrub with black soap(wonderful! !) and would like to make it into a soap ball by adding shea butter and more soap, but am afraid of the shea butter going bad from contact with water.
2. I had left my clay bar on the soap dish in my shower for a couple of days(I was away for the weekend) and found it all crumbled to pieces. I had used water instead of witch hazel. Do you think that could have been the problem?
Will await your expert advice. Thank you.
Hi Gianne! The bar should not be in constant contact with water, so the shea butter spoiling rapidly shouldn’t be a problem. Mine gets wet maybe once a day, and then set aside to dry, which happens quite quickly as only the top layer of the bar gets wet, and most of that ends up on my face. As for the black soap, I would keep to relatively low percentages of shea butter (5% or less), and work in small amounts so you can finish it off before it can spoil.
It sounds like the problem with your clay bar falling apart is that it got too wet. It shouldn’t ever be soaked through, and should always be left to dry after use. You should be able to re-assemble it, though—just crush it back to a powder and start over 🙂
I only have French Green clay- will that work or do I need Kaolin clay too? I don’t have zinc oxide- can I leave it out or what can I replace it with?
You can definitely do this with just plain French Green Clay if that’s all you’ve got 🙂
How many bars does this make? Can I sub shea butter for coconut oil?
Also, I wanted to ask since I don’t have allantoin and zinc oxide can I use green tea powder? I’m not saying green tea is a good sub,but I saw in one of your other face masks. Is it a good sub?
You can definitely add some green tea powder 🙂 You could also use green tea as part of the liquid.
It just makes one, and in this case you should be able to get away using coconut oil instead of shea.
Marie can add extra aloe Vera juice or water in exchange for the witch hazel?
Yup!
I have been experimenting a little….and doing varieties of this but question to you…what would you think about adding a bit of Vitamin C to the mask???
I have added ground honey, and other goodies, but thoughts on the vitamin C? I don’t want anything too abrasive, but I wasnt sure if it would be worth it since it’s not staying on your face…
thanks!
Hi Anna! I tend to avoid adding vitamin C to anything intended to have a shelf life now as it oxidizes quite quickly. I couldn’t say how fast it would oxidize in any given situation, but given that it’s rather pricey, I like to save it for applications where I know it’ll still be active when I use it 🙂
Thank you Marie 🙂
Have I told you how awesome you are lately??? LOL.
Thanks Anna 😀 You’re making me blush 😉
I’m going to try this with Australian pink clay (because that’s what I’ve got!). Looks great!
Awesome! Enjoy it 🙂
I was worried that I didn’t have all of the ingredients, But it turns out that I have been following your posts so well and getting the ingredients (and not following through) that I actually had a bottle of witchhazel and aloe juice! The pink clay turned a washcloth pink, but I am okay with that . Does the french green *not* transfer color? I would get some if that were the case, because my girlfriends have hinted that these would be good gifts.
Hi Brooke! Thanks for DIYing with me 🙂 I have conveniently paired my love of French Green clay with a collection of dark green washcloths, but on the odd occasion I do use a different colour it will transfer, but doesn’t stain. If you’re really concerned about it, white kaolin would be the best choice.
Can I add more shea butter or any soft butter so that you only have to wet the bar once? If so, how much? Or do you have to add more of the liquid portion? How much would you add if so?
Sorry… what are you trying to make? A sort of body butter bar with lots of clay? The idea is that the bar dries out to be hard, if you keep it wet with water all the time the whole thing will start to sprout mould 🙁 You will also need some meaningful amount of water in contact with the clay to get the drying/drawing action desired from a face mask.
No- I simply am wondering that if you add a little bit more shea butter you don’t have to wet it several times when using it.
Ah! I doubt it, as oil repels water.
Hey Marie! I’ve made this recipe twice now, both times with bentonite clay instead of French green clay. They set up well but the problem is getting the mixture into the molds. I am using the same mold that you are but the mixture is so thick, it makes the sides of the mold bulge out. I’ve tried adding more witch hazel to make it more fluid but the mixture goes from really crumbly (using the amount of witch hazel you suggested) to more paste-like but still uber thick. Is it the bentonite? Thanks for sharing your ideas and great talent!
HI Jennifer! I do find that bentonite clay behaves very differently from the French and Australian clays. It’s much heavier and coarser, and makes a far stiffer paste when combined with liquid. Have you thought about cutting the bentonite with something smoother like kaolin or French green to help with the texture? You could also try shaping the bar by hand if it’s that thick, coming back after a day or so to smooth the surface a bit.
Thanks for reading!
Oh. My. God. I LOVE this. I haven’t done a mask in decades because I find I never have the time or I’m just plain lazy. My skin feels so clean and soft after this!
Awesome! I’m so glad you’re loving this bar 🙂
Hi,
I even read your receipt of “everyday french green clay bar”; cool thing! Would you tell me how much is a cup? 200 milliliter?
Thanks for your reply
Hi Yola! 1 cup is 250mL.
Hi marie
thanks for your answer. Will try now this wounderful receipt
best, yola
🙂
Hello,
I made this last week with kaolin clay but I had serious issues with the bar crumbling. It broke super easy. It completely dried in the mold and when I went to take it out it just crumbled. Any ideas on how to make it a little tougher?
It sounds like you used too much water—are you following the recipe as written?
If the water/liquid dries out, would there still be crumbling issues once it’s done drying out? I was having trouble shoving my mix into the mold so I added more liquid (hangs head in shame) and just checked it every day to smoosh it down as far as I could. Work for a bit but then cracked in half. Still REALLY like the bar overall because it makes my face feel clean without being super dry.
I haven’t had crumbling issues when I stick to the thick paste amount of liquid. In instances where I’ve gone for a creamy consistency I’ve had lots of cracking and crumbling, so I really recommend toughing it out with the stiff paste stage. At least you can smash it up, pop it in your coffee grinder, and try again 🙂
Hi Marie, great idea!
Please can you specify in grams the amout of green clay and kaolin?
And a question about witch hazel and aloe vera juice – when they vaporizes, the good stuff from them stays in bar (clays “lock” it somehow?) and vaporizes just water, or how does it work?
Thanks! 🙂
Hi Lucy! I’m not feeling particularly motivated to go get out my clays, measure them, and weigh them… so no 😛
The way evaporation works means that only H2O evaporates—everything else is left behind. Think of how salt is left behind when ocean water evaporates—that’s basically what is happening here.
Hello Marie,
Thanks for the recipe! Can’t wait to try it! Just a quick question – could I use this clay bar daily and replace my cleanser? Sorry it sounds like a silly question as it says everyday green clay bar, but I just wanted to double check!
Thanks!
Hi JC! I frequently use this bar (or other clay bars I’m experimenting with) as an end of the day facial cleanser 🙂 It does the trick beautifully without being as intense as a full mask!
Thanks, Marie so much for letting me know!
Sorry 2 more questions if you don’t mind:
1. For using it in the tropics with high room temperature, I wonder if I should use “mango butter” or “kokum butter” instead of “shea butter” because of higher melting point? What do you think?
2. Could you share with me where you get your scale? My scale doesn’t measure less than 1 gram and it appears your do!
Please let me know and thanks so much again!
I’d probably stick with shea butter—it melts at 37°C (maybe 1°C less than kokum and mango), and it isn’t the only thing holding these bars together by any means. The scale is from Lee Valley 🙂
Thanks so much Marie!
I supposed the mixture of the clay and aloe vera juice and the hazel witch solidified the bar. — please correct me if I am wrong, still very new to this!
Thanks again!
Not really—they just bind the clay together and then the water evaporates off, leaving you with a solid, dry bar of clay.
Got ya! Thanks, Marie!
🙂
This Looks Like An Awesome RECIPE!! But Is it ONLY for ACNE skin? I haven’t used as clay mask in years!! Doesn’t Clay Dry your Face out? And With The Witch Hazel? I’m just Wondering. I Need Moisture.
Good morning Cheri!
In short, NOPE! Clay masks are not just for acne skin. It all depends on which type of clay you’re going to use, how long you let the mask sit for, the additional ingredients you plan to use. So many variables! If you are looking for some hard core moisture factor, might I suggest this mask?
Hi
I made these right after you had posted. I love this clay and how drawing it is. My problem is that my hypersensitivity and rosacea are bothered by masks. So I just started using them in the shower. After I OCM, I use the bar and by the end of my shower I rinse it off. It only applies a thin layer that dries pretty quickly and hasn’t seemed to bother me so far. Anyways, as always great recipes and many thanks
Hi Jessica! I’m so glad you’re enjoying this bar and that you’ve found a way for it to work for you 🙂 Thanks for reading & DIYing with me!
Hi Marie! If I use goats milk as a liquid in here, will my bar spoil quickly? I am wondering if the milk go bad even if you mix it with clays ?
I would definitely be concerned about the bar moulding on you—clay is not a preservative in any way, shape, or form, and milk has a tendency to spoil quite quickly, especially at room temperature.
Hi! What is the shelf life of this bar? Do you add any preservatives? If so, what? Would you recommend adding a preservative if I plan to sell a bar that uses this idea of using clay and water to create a bar? What conditions do you store your bar in? Can I add some cocoa butter powder (cocoa butter ground in a blender)? Would this be ok to sub the shea butter with or would I just use shea and cocoa butter powder? What amount would I add if possible?
Keep it dry for the majority of the time and it should last until the oil in it goes rancid. Mine live in my bathroom, and you should be able to trade around amoungst the solid oils, but I haven’t tried them all, and especially not in all the different amounts imaginable—why don’t you? 🙂
How moisturizing is this bar? Can I add some more coconut oil to make it more moisturizing? Will it interfere with the emulsification if I add more?
This bar is not supposed to be moisturizing, so it’s not moisturizing at all. I would not recommend adding more oils, my experiments with doing so have resulted in mouldy bars that have to be thrown out.
Marie,
Could you add activated charcoal to this, and remove a bit of clay to balance out the dry ingredients?
Yup! I actually have a similar recipe on my to-do list 😉
I made a few of these and my wife loves them. Some grew mold on them. Any idea why? Are they no drying fast enough? How can I speed this up in a very humid Philadelphia? Thx!
It definitely sounds like they aren’t drying fast enough—I’ve had this happen before as well. You can try reducing the amount of oil you use, making the bars smaller with more surface area (thinner, basically), and pulling them from the mould to a wire rack as soon as possible.
Hi, would you use this every day as a cleanser? If not, do you have an everyday cleanser you would recommend? THanks,
You definitely can, but these things really do depend on your skin, so try it and see how it goes 🙂
Have you ever done a clay bar without an oil or wax? I’m wondering if it is necessary to hold together or if it is possible to skip this….
Thanks!
J
I actually haven’t, though I feel like it should be possible 🙂 Let me know if you try it!
I’d like to try this recipe but already hit a language barrier ><
Does the french green clay goes by any other name?
My go-to source for ingredients only has two green clay, "Montmorilloni (INSI: Smectite)" or "green illite clay (INSI: illite, comes from Velay)", both from France (we're I am actually)…
If anyone could help me 🙂
Both are used for facemasks but I'd like to stick the closest to this recipe before trying anything else!
Hi Carto! The INCI for the green clay I use is “Illite” 🙂 You can read more about it here.
Hi! I discovered your blog and I am love with your posts. I want to make every single one of your DIY! <3 Sadly, since in my country it's difficult to find all the ingredients, and I'm having trouble collecting everything. I read above you could trade Witch Hazel with some Green tea, but for the Alove Vera Juice, can I use something else? (they only have Alore vera Juice as in flavored drinking juice). Maybe even Aloe Vera gel dilluted in a some distilled water? Thanks for your help!
Hi Kalhie! You can just leave the aloe vera juice out 🙂 If you live somewhere quite warm and humid, I’d honestly use water instead of the green tea (witch hazel helps the bar dry faster, so without it we need to make other considerations); we need this bar to dry quickly to prevent mould, because as long as it’s still wet/damp, it can mould. Green tea is better mould food than water, so it might not be a good idea if you live in an area where the bar isn’t likely to dry too quickly. You might also want to increase airflow (point a fan at it).
Hi Marie, thank you so much for your reply. I made those little bars and now I am waiting for them to dry. I’m so excited! >.<
Enjoy! I’ve got one drying now, too 🙂
Hi Marie! I noticed in your recipe it calls for 8g of shea butter but on the picture with the scale it says 80g so I was just wondering which is the correct one. Thank you!
Hey Cynthia! The scale actually reads 8.0g, not 80g, so 8.0g is correct 🙂
Thanks so much,. I made some up and tweeked it a little bit, they are now drying. Can’t wait to see how they turn out.
Fingers crossed! Thanks for DIYing with me 🙂
Hi Marie!
I am loving the site redesign! It’s so exciting to see where you are going with all of this! I was wondering, I got my scale, made this, and would like to know how could I make it more creamy and moisturizing without jeopardizing the stability of this bar to “hold together”? It was a bit drying for me. Thank you so much!
Hey Ashlynn! I’d be worried about adding more moisturizing ingredients as the more delicious things you add to this bar, the more likely it is to turn into a fuzzy mould colony as it dries. I’d recommend trying a gentler clay if the French Green is too drying for you; perhaps white kaolin?
I attempted this the other day with no success 🙁 I ended up with a stiff ball of clay that ended up cracking. Not at all the way yours look like (in any of the steps…lol). I did substitute the kaolin for bentonite as I didn’t have kaolin and left out the zinc – didn’t have any of that either. Could having done either of these been my downfall?
The bentonite swap is a HUGE change! That is definitely the culprit. Read this and this to learn why and how bentonite is different from other clays. I haven’t written one of those experiments about koalin yet, but it’s pretty close to French Green for our purposes 🙂
Hi Marie,
I would like to try this out! However, I can only get australian green clay fr my local supplier. Can I use that instead? What difference would that make in my bar? Thanks!
Hmm. I haven’t tried Aussie green clay, but in my experience the Aussie clays aren’t too different from the French clays. You might need a slightly different amount of water, but that’s probably the only real change you’ll see.
Hi! Your recipe looks amazing. I was wondering if it would be the same if I replaced french clay for bentonite clay ( I happen to have a lot atm) I have all the other ingredients. Look forward to trying this out 🙂 Thanks x
Hi Cristina! It definitely will not be even close to being the same—bentonite clay is a highly absorbent clay that behaves very differently from most clays. Learn more here and here 🙂
Hi,
I would like to try this out! However, I can only get australian green clay fr my local supplier. Can I use that instead? What difference would that make in my bar? Thanks!
I think that should work, though I’ve never used Aussie green clay. Assuming it’s similar to Aussie beige, you should be good to go—the only thing that might change would be the amount of water you need, so go by the consistency guidelines for water more so than the provided measurements 🙂
This bar is my new best friend lol. I use it daily and it helps keep my breakouts at bay, and my skin soft and exfoliated. I just want to say how inspiring you are. After trying your recipes I have enough confidence to create my own. It’s so gratifying and fun. Thanks so much Marie!
Awesome! I’m so glad you’re loving it 🙂 Clay is so underrated, and has done so much for my complexion that I can’t help but tell the world how great it is whenever I can haha 😉 Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me!
I tried to make this, but it was very rough and hurt my face when I used it? I did omit the shea butter and subbed it for coconut oil? Was that a mistake? I also let it dry for longer than suggested? How would you improve the slip as it more skidded rather than glide across the face?
I get a could rough spots every now and then with mine, and I think it’s pretty much from just not mixing and shmooshing it well enough. You might also need to zip the dry bits through a coffee grinder as well. For the current bar, just rub it on your fingers/hands to protect your skin while you experiment on a new bar or bash up another one to try again 🙂 That’s what I love about these bars, mess up? Take it out on the bar and bash it to smithereens and try again 😀 😀
Thanks, Liz! 😀
Usually when this happens to me it’s because I didn’t get the bar wet enough; perhaps try longer, more frequent soaks under the tap?
I was wondering if I could speed up the drying time by putting the bar in the oven on the warming setting? It’s been almost a week and the bar is still dark (wet) and cold to the touch. I’ve left it in areas with good air circulation, but it still hasn’t dried. My only concern with putting it in the oven is that either the coconut oil will melt and make it go soft, or the heat will make the clay go too hard, like crafting clay. What do you think? Thanks!
Hey Lori! I’ve never tried using the oven to speed up drying time; I’d probably try putting it in front of a fan, first, on a drying rack. Or perhaps try a dehydrator, if you have one? A very cool oven should work, but again, I haven’t tried it…
Update: I put the bar in the oven directly on the rack on the lowest setting for about an hour, maybe a bit more. It cracked in some places, and it shrunk to about half its original size. When I took it out, it was pretty much completely dry, so I tried it on my face. It worked perfectly! The cracks have started to smooth out with use as well. I forgot to mention that I kind of mixed this recipe with the rose clay bar recipe. I thought maybe the coconut oil in the rose clay bar helped it go onto the face more easily, since it melts at such a low temperature. The bar leaves a nice layer of clay on my skin, so it seems to have paid off (although I haven’t tried the shea butter version). Thanks for the recipe!
Woohoo! Good to know, thanks for sharing your findings 🙂 Enjoy your clay bar!
I added seaweed powder and a little bit of silk peptides and left out the zinc and allatonan. My bars aren’t 100% dry but they are a weird brown color. Is this normal when they are drying?
Hey Gina! Seaweed powder is a fairly weird dark brownish green, so I can see it impacting the colour of your bars, but I am worried about spoilage here :/ Seaweed powder and silk are both tasty bacteria food since they are both organic, and the silk peptides will hold onto water, meaning the bars will take longer to dry than the original recipe. Please keep an eye out for mould—if it’s been a day or two and your bars are still damp they are probably going to sprout mould pretty soon here.
I love this bar! I didn’t have all of the ingredients, so I had to tweaked it just a bit. I left out zinc oxide, allantoin, and used distilled water instead of aloe vera juice. I had to use an extra tablespoon of witch hazel and water, maybe because I left out those ingredients? But I noticed that after using this bar everyday, the edges will crumble and flake off. Not large chucks, but I hate to think of my precious bits of clay going to waste. It does stay its shape and after using it and having it wet with water, it smoothes things over and the edges look less likely to fall off. I was wondering, does your bar end up crumbling and flaking? Is it normal or is there a way to keep this precious bar completely intact?
Hey Gen! My bar doesn’t crumble at all—it’s surprisingly study. I suspect the crumbling you’re experiencing is because you dropped the extra ingredients, as I’ve made clay bars with just clay and witch hazel, and those ones have been very crumbly, especially after they’ve really well and proper dried out (after a month or so). I dropped one from a fairly low height over the counter and it exploded everywhere 🙁
Hi Marie, your receipe looks great!! I can’t wait to try it. But I was wondering, is there a substitute for the Zinc Oxide? Or can I just leave it out? Thanks.
Hey Charu! You can leave it out, though other readers have reported structural problems with the bar (it starts to crumble a lot) after a bit of use without it 🙂
Hey, I love this recipe! I was just wondering though since there is aloe juice in it if I should put a preservative? Or how long will it last without a preservative? Thanks so much for all your wonderful recipes!
Hey Sarah! Assuming you let the bar dry thoroughly between uses it’ll last ages—the original I made for this post is still going strong. Even though there is aloe juice in it, like dried pasta, the water portion doesn’t stick around for long. I do live somewhere very dry, though, so it dried quickly when I made it and dries quickly after each use. If you live somewhere more humid, you should probably consider adding a preservative.
I didn’t do something right, bummer. The end result is a creamy, crumbly mess 🙂 I saw above where you said it could all go back into the grinder and start over. What do I add to it now to make it correct? More witch hazel? If this comes out right I can tell I’m going to love it! Thank you, Marie, I really am enjoying your blog and recipes – needing to get a second job in order to support my habit but fun it is 🙂 🙂
Hey Suzanne! You will need to re-hydrate the re-blended mixture with more witch hazel. Take care not to add too much—you should have a very stiff paste that you can pack into your mould. If it’s really crumbly that’s usually indicative of having used too much liquid 🙂 Good luck and thanks for reading and DIYing with me!
I have a lot of humidity and my clay bars are cracking on the top. Is there a way to prevent this? Can I put them in the oven on the lowest temperature?
Are you talking about ambient humidity, or the amount of water you added to the bars?
Have you tried using essential oil into this mixture? I did and it almost wants to stay on at the bottom, it does not want to stay mixed with the other ingredients. I wonder if it will last or will it go rancid because of it?
I haven’t—I generally try to put as little “food” in these bars as possible because they are quite mould-prone. Essential oils don’t contain any lipids so they won’t go rancid, but they definitely can be mould food!
marie, would this bar work if i replaced the french green clay by activated charcoal?
I haven’t tried it, but given that activated charcoal is not a clay and does not behave with water the way clay does, I’m thinking not. You can always try it, but I think you will likely end up with a very crumbly lump that will make a huuuuuuge mess whenever you try to use it!
With earth ingredients and aloe being at high microbiological risk, have you considered the potential for contamination? Earth ingredients can also have Clostridia – do you use sterilized clay?
I definitely didn’t at time time as I was an extra naive dolt in 2014 (I hope I have graduated to plain naive dolt by now, but hindsight will likely be the judge of that). I did and still use cosmetic grade clay from suppliers like New Directions, but I highly doubt that is sterilized. At the time my thinking was that this bar would be dry for 99% of its life, and without water, it wouldn’t spoil. I still have this original bar and it isn’t fuzzy—just smooth and bone dry—though obviously that is far from a sturdy testament to its shelf life. The bar that inspired this recipe is this one, which is also completely unpreserved… obviously not necessarily good practice, and they may’ve used sterilized clay without mentioning it, which would then put that in a very different category, though I would guess the clay would still be prone to spoilage when wet?
I would really love to read more on this! Is the contamination only a concern because of the repeated exposure to water? Clay certainly isn’t an uncommon cosmetic ingredient, and contamination hasn’t come up as a concern in what I’ve read so far, though I am aware it is very difficult to preserve when kept wet. If you could direct me to some good reading, I would be hugely appreciative.
Thanks, Phil!
Ask the guys who sold you the clay – how do they know there’s no dangerous bacteria like clostridia? Aloe is always a pain. Sorry if you already said it but how much heat goes into the product? The bugs in aloe are usually sensitive to heat.
Hi! I’m just finding this recipe now. I’m a newbie in starting DIY skin products. My question is: Can I substitute a liquid oil for the butter? Or does the solidifying at room temperature what helps keep it together? I have oily, problem skin and I always shudder at putting saturated oils on my face. Thank you!!
The solid butter is a big part of what helps it stay together, sorry 🙂
Hi Marie! I was wondering if adding some arrowroot, acacia gum, lecithin, or guar gum would help the bar retain it’s shape? I’m also thinking about adding some marshmallow root to give the bar some slip. Do you think thats a good idea? I also want to add quite a few other goodies like magnesium chloride, Panthenol, niacinamide, sea salt, and various plant powders. I want to make a “chocolate” bar using cocoa powder too. And Thalassotherapy clay bar using dead sea clay. Do you think sea clay would be alright? There’s a lot of different kinds of these bars I want to make and I really think that some of them will need a preservative. I plan on using liquid germall plus. When and how should I add it? Thank you so much for all you do!
Sorry one more thing! Can I add a surfactant to this to make it a “cleansing” clay bar? I have some powdered surfactants and liquid ones as well. Do you think the bar would hold it’s shape if I used a liquid? I even considered adding powdered african black soap to it. I also have powdered plant “surfactants” (saponins), like soapwort root, yucca root, soapnut, and shikakai. So I thought about adding some of those, and then maybe some citric acid and baking soda, to make the bar foam up when it gets wet. Does any of this sound good to you, or am I just getting way off course lol?
The challenge with adding anything botanical or otherwise delicious to bacteria to this bar is the shelf life—it moulded before it could dry the first time when I was playing. I haven’t experimented extensively with including preservatives in this particular recipe (you’ll note it’s quite old), but clay is a very hard thing to preserve. From Making Skincare: “Your preservative system will be compromised if there are solid particles, for example, talc, inorganic sunscreens, clays, pigments as the preservative may absorb onto the surface of the particles and so become unavailable to protect the water phase.” (source). There’s a reason there’s no newer clay bar recipes on my website—I’m unsure I can create anything shelf stable with much of anything other than straight clay, and even with straight clay the quick drying time is really necessary, hence my hesitation to explore further in this area.
Super excited to try this! Sooo… is using not pure witch hazel an issue? I have Thayers witch hazel, which of course has other ingredients like water, rose water, aloe, and citric acid.
You should be using pure witch hazel.
Hi Marie, this is an old favorite of mine but I can’t recall for the life of me how many bars this makes? I use a regular 12 individual bar soap PVC mold thing. But i notice that the “mold” you use looks to me like a 1/4 cup–does this recipe just make one of those? Thank you!
best,
Jade
The mold in the photo is 100mL 🙂
Hi Marie – I love everything about this! And you! Huge fan.
Anyway I made this and it is drying. How long do you anticipate that this takes to fully dry. weeks?
That really depends on how humid it is where you live, but if it takes more than a day or two to dry I’d worry about spoilage. Clay is highly prone to moulding, and a large part of the success of this bar is ensuring it is dry 99% of the time. People who live in really humid environments have reported issues with mould, so keep an eye out and place it somewhere with plenty of air flow!