I’ve had a few requests for a facial cleanser that’s creamy, yet exfoliating, and here’s what I’ve come up with. It’s thick, creamy, scrubby, and sudsy, and smells awesome to boot—an exfoliating creamy cleansing balm!
I no longer recommend using alkaline cleansers like soap or baking soda on your face; read this for more information.
Based around my Gentle Cleansing Balm, this creamy cleanser gets an exfoliating punch from some ground pumice. If your face doesn’t need that much scrubbing power, baking soda (USA / Canada) is an awesome alternative.
The cream soap paste (which you make yourself, and quite easily at that) is diluted with unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) and avocado oil to create a rich, creamy balm that softens up wonderfully when massaged into the skin.
The balm isn’t immediately scrubby feeling, but once you start gently massaging it into your face, you’ll notice the pumice. Pumice is a pretty aggressive exfoliant, so I’ve barely added any, but trust me—it gets the job done.
After rinsing your face, you’ll find it wonderfully soft and smooth. I did a half/half comparison on my face when I first made it, and I found myself constantly stroking my exfoliated cheek in wonder.
I no longer recommend using alkaline cleansers like soap or baking soda on your face; read this for more information.
Exfoliating Creamy Cleansing Balm
25g | 0.88oz cream soap paste or liquid soap paste
25g | 0.88oz unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada)2 tsp white kaolin clay (USA / Canada) (or other fine clay)
½ tsp fine ground pumice~20g | 0.7oz avocado oil
2 blobs labdanum essential oil
5 drops petitgrain essential oilCombine the soap paste and unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) in a glass measuring cup or bowl and heat over a hot water bath until the unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) melts. Mash up the soap paste with a fork (you’ll end up with blobs of soap paste), remove the dish from the heat, and let everything come to room temperature.
Using a set of electric beaters at high speed, beat the soap and unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) together (I recommend hearing protection). You need to blast the soap paste into teensy little bits so you don’t have clods of soap in the mixture. You’re done when the mixture looks homogenous.
Add the clay and pumice, and beat everything together. The mixture will be pretty dry. Add avocado oil about 5g at a time, blending between additions, until you get a texture you’re happy with.
Blend in the essential oils, and then decant the balm into a wide-mouthed container.
To use, begin by wetting your face. Scoop a teaspoon or so of the cleansing balm into your hands, add a bit of water, and lather it up before applying it to your face. Massage your face with your finger tips in a small circular motions. Rinse and wipe off, and follow up with some argan oil if your skin feels dry.
Hi Marie,
Would bentonite clay work for this recipe?
Hi Jocelyn! It won’t be quite the same, and you may find that you need more, but it should work 🙂
Another good exfoliate is Vit C powder. I thin slice organic orange rind and dehydrate it. I then blend it in a coffee grinder to make a fine powder. Adding some of this makes a nice “scrub” effect and it is nourishing your skin as well. At this point, I just sprinkle some on my damp hands and work into my face over my cleanser but adding it into the cleanser sounds great too.
Hey Dorsey! This sounds like a fun idea but I would like to point out that ground up orange peel is not the same thing as vitamin C powder 🙂 Pure vitamin C powder (or ascorbic acid) looks like sugar, and has a very low pH as it’s very acidic. I do not recommend putting pure vitamin C powder on your skin as it is really very painful (… I’ve tried it).
How long does it last and why not use a preservative and which one would you suggest
No preservative needed, the pH is high enough that it self-preserves 🙂
How much is a blob of 2 blobs labdanum essential oil?
I say “blob” instead of “drop” because labdanum EO is too thick for “drops”. You get “blobs” instead 😛
THANK YOU, THANK YOU for this new formula! Been looking for something like this, as I have that proverbial “mature skin”, but am not interested in using that equally proverbial “store-bought junk”. I’m just sorry you did not contact the Texas Soap Makers Assn. (we are now “Texas Soap and Toiletries”) in your earlier quest for a Cream Soap recipe. We share everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING soap related). As an aside, might you find time to create a formula for Liquid Powder? Would love to see what you come up with. Thanks again!
So happy to help, MommaTish!
I’ll have to check out your soap group 🙂 When you say liquid powder, do you mean a powdered liquid soap?
I just use my well cured cream soap which is loaded with skin friendly additives (already preserved) and add in a little extra oil and exfoliant for a creamy cleanser. It also makes a really nice garden soap when you add ground up botanicals along with some pumice
Beautiful!
Another lovely concoction! Do you mind explaining to me the different between the creamy soap paste and liquid soap paste? Brambleberry sell castille liquid soap paste, do you think that would work in this recipe?
Hi Annie! The difference in the types of lye used (NaOH vs KOH)—recipes here and here. You should be able to use a premade liquid soap paste for any of my cleansing balm recipes, though—the inclusion of NaOH doesn’t make a huge difference in this application 🙂
Oh, this is what I was looking for. I found a goat”s milk and glycerin soap base. (I don’t have the room to work with lye at home.) So I was going to try this with the goat’s milk base. I saw that you can use a liquid soap paste so I’m guessing that the goats milk base should work okay too. A long time ago I used to take my twin girls to the Renaissance Fair here in Ga for their birthdays . There was a woman who sold goat’s milk and honey soap that was absolutely divine. I swear the scent of that soap was an out-of-body experience. Alas, I never found her again. I still remember that scent from 20 years ago. I’m hoping to re-create it again.
Hi Sharon! Is the base you have a liquid soap base or a bar soap base? If it’s a bar soap base, I don’t think it will work. They are saponified with totally different lye (sodium hydroxide vs. potassium hydroxide), and the paste used here is not a solid. If it’s a liquid soap paste you got, it will likely work.
Chances are the scent you remember came from neither the honey nor the goats milk as neither scent comes through in a bar of soap. Good luck!
The saponifying agent is sodium hydroxide. Is that for hard soap?
Yes it is—you’d want something saponified with potassium hydroxide for this recipe 🙂 Or at least a blend of the two, and with the soap not containing any “hard” oils like tallow or palm.
I made an ‘almost black’ cold-process soap by adding a few spoons of “Shea Terra 100% Pure African Black Soap 9 oz.” in powder form, at trace. I used 55% shea butter and ran the recipe through Soap Calc first. I think you could probably crumble and add Saffire Blue’s soap, too–this one I found on Amazon is already “powdered”–a bit like coffee grounds for cold-pressed coffee, not fine grind.
The resulting soap seems to work as well as the real deal in raw form imported from Ghana. I’ve read it has a 55% shea butter content, too.
My daughter and hubby both get eczema patches from time to time–African black soap works beautifully and doesn’t dry out their perennially dry skin as other soaps do. Wonderful stuff, even when ‘diluted’ into DIY cold process.
Sorry–this comment was supposed to follow yours on black soap from 2012–I had two different humblebee pages open at once.
No worries!
I think I may have to give this a try, and perhaps add some clay and other goodies as well 🙂 Cool idea, thank you!
hm… do you think soap is good to use on a face due to high ph? I always thought it’s not great for face, or maybe I’m missing something? This recipe sounds and looks so appealing to try, but the acidity of soap bothers me 🙁
Hi Veronika! In my experience, it’s totally fine. The pH of homemade soap is roughly the same as the pH of baking soda, which is also a very popular facial cleanser. Remember that high ph = basic, not acidic 🙂 You aren’t leaving the soap on your face for very long, and I’ve found homemade soaps to be more gentle than detergent powered cleansers. That said, everybody’s skin is different, so test it out and see what you think. Just don’t write it off purely because of the pH 🙂
This! Thank you for an exfoliating scrub! That’s the first thing on my list for soap paste use once I get a batch together. I love the goat bars I’ve been using but they don’t clear away all that yucky dead skin. :p I’m going to use the orange peel idea someone suggested as I have some dried peels ready for pulverising for masks.
What oils work as a good sub for the avocado though? I’ve got almond, grapeseed, and castor… I was thinking almond??
KM
Any of those should work, but I would caution against using castor oil, as it can be drying.
Though, in this case that might not be horrible. The castor oil should definitely amp up the cleansing power of the balm, if that’s desired 🙂
Woo! Let me know how you like it. Out of the oils you listed I’d probably try blending almond with some shea butter 🙂
Hi Marie
This cleanser sounds wonderful! I would love to use it in the shower, and was wondering if it would work in a pump top bottle? It would be much easier to dispense that way. Judging from your pictures, it looks quite solid – do you think I could add water to make it more liquid? Or more oil?
I’m really enjoying this process of making all my skin and hair care products – you have been such an inspiration!! I know have to create more space for all my raw materials – it certainly gets addictive.
Thank you!!
Hi Birgit! This cleansing balm is supposed to be a balm texture—definitely not pump friendly. I would leave the recipe as it is—if you want an exfoliating liquid soap, I’d start there rather than trying to modify this one 🙂
Hello!
I am thinking of adding zink oxid to the balm, what do you think of that?
I think it’ll be quite white. Why do you want to add ZO? It would be sort of like washing your face with soapy diaper cream, haha.
I thought the balm will have better pore-cleaning properties))
From my experience I don’t think that would be the effect, but you are more than welcome to give it a go if you’d like 🙂
Hi Marie!
Just love your recipes and your great work!! Just one request- please write the recipes in percentage or by weight in grams. That would be really helpful.
I already do so… request granted? The exception to this is where a weight measurement would require people to have a very sensitive scale, so you’ll usually see small amounts of powders and EO’s measured in volume/drops.
Hi Marie!
I totally love all your recipes and can’t wait for your book! Was wondering though, could I use some Liquid Castille soap or some shaved up Castille soap bar for this recipe? I’m not quite ready to make my own soap, so was wondering if this would work. Thank you!
Hey Beverly! If you want to use a purchased product instead I would look at purchasing some premade liquid soap paste 🙂 Brambleberry sells some that look good! The diluted soap will add way too much water to the product, and I’m not sure how well a shaved up solid bar would incorporate. Happy making!
Is this recipe safe for both day and night? Since it is exfoliating balm.
Thank you
Safe, sure, but you would likely find that to be more exfoliation than your skin needs/enjoys unless you have very tough skin. Personally, I would not use this 2x a day.
Ohhhh, I’m so excited right now! I started with this wonderful recipe and was so happy with the result. Then, I started wondering about all your whipped soap recipes. I don’t have stearic acid and I thought I’d just wing it.
I added your base whipped soap to a zip bag with the additional melted shea butter, water, and added meadowfoam oil. I warmed it in a water bath, then squished it while I watched a movie with my son (I don’t have the patience to wait a day for it to dissolve so I “helped” it along. When it was pretty homogenous, I transferred it all to a stand mixer and added more just-boiled water as it mixed. I kind of panicked for a second when the lather threatened to get out of control but then it started to settle down.
As it continued to mix, I added the baking soda (I didn’t have pumice) and kaolin clay. Imagine how tickled I was when I realized the final product ended up looking and feeling just like meringue. I’ve been waiting for it collapse, but it’s been a few hours and it’s still nearly as light and fluffy as it was when I first scooped it into a jar.
I’m hoping the baking soda held up through the process and will still be scrubby. If not, I’ll repeat the process when I get some pumice.
Hey Misty! I LOVE your bag squishy idea, how fun—and efficient—sounding! Good call, I will have to try that next time I make something with soap paste 🙂 I look forward to hearing how that texture holds, it sounds decadent.
Hey, Marie. The soap is still ultra light and fluffy 5 days in, so I’m stoked! My mom is raving about it (and she doesn’t rave). The baking soda didn’t hold up as an exfoliant because of the water, but I can’t bring myself to add anything else that would ruin the glorious texture. The meadowfoam seed oil worked out beautifully, leaving my face impossibly soft. I haven’t used my face serum in several days.
Because there was so much air whipped in, the process created a massive volume of product. I ended up with about 2 liters of soap. (I think I used the above recipe, then ended up adding another 25 g of the paste.) My mom got a 16 oz jar and I’ve got one by my tub. I’m going to separate the rest into small batches, scent and tint them, then gift them for Christmas.
Hope your holiday is a merry one! Thanks for the gift of DIY inspiration!
So cool! That’s awesome 😀 Next time you might try jojoba beads instead—they’re so pretty and colourful, and they won’t dissolve in water. I’m so, so thrilled that you’re loving your creation, it sounds utterly decadent and your skin must be utterly spoiled 🙂 Enjoy gifting it out—there’s few things more exciting than gifting your own handmade creations to friends and family!
I’m in the process of making this facial cleanser but can’t find my jar of pumice, but I do have some cranberry seeds and hibiscus flower powder on order which I may use. I added a small amount of pink clay to the soap/shea as well as 1 gram of rose wax and a very small amount of resin shavings when I melted the soap/shea. The fragrance is beautiful. I’m into rose scented things these days
OOoh, I’m with you on the rose love! Swoon. I’d definitely recommend grinding up the cranberry seeds if you do use them—I think the whole seeds might make you bleed!
Is there ANY way possible to make a soap paste out of raw african black soap? One that I can use to make your recipes that call for the paste. I have a couple pounds of the same african black soap that you have. I have been making various types of natural cleansers for years but I have never worked with any kind of lye and I’m not comfortable doing so. (My grandma always made and used lye soap. She got it stuck in my head that I WILL get severely burned by lye, so I literally developed a phobia of it and it’s impossible for me to work with it.) I love all your recipes and I soooo want to make these too!
No; you are basically trying to make bread dough from baked bread in this situation. You can, however, purchase liquid soap paste from suppliers like Brambleberry and use that 🙂
I will do that! Thank you!
Sorry, one more question, is that the Castile Liquid Soap Paste (at Brambleberry)? I just want to make sure I’m getting the right thing. Thanks!
Yup!
Hi, I wondered if I could use bicarb as an exfoliant by itself – I read that bicarb is bad for your skin (something to do with PH) what is your opinion on it?
Please don’t! I’ve written lots about that here.