There are few things more summery to me than a gin and tonic. My parents would always drink them on the porch during the summer in these special crinkly, textured glasses they have. The love of gin & tonic in warm weather must be hereditary, because the good old G&T is one of my favourite drinks, especially when the thermometer goes past 25°C. So, naturally… I turned it into soap. That’s normal, right?
This soap smells wonderfully of summer, assuming you associate the smell of gin and tonic with the smell of summer. Otherwise, it smells mostly of citrus, with a hint of dry juniper. It’s yellow with orange swirls, and just the thing for summer (though maybe not the night after you’ve had two or three too many G&T’s).
Gin & Tonic Soap
35% olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada)
25% refined coconut oil (USA / Canada)
15% lard
15% unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada)
10% castor oil (USA / Canada)Per 500g (1.1lbs) oils:
- 26g lemon essential oil
- 2g juniper essential oil
- 1 tbsp white white kaolin clay (USA / Canada) (or some other brownish clay)
- 2 tsp buriti oil (for colouring—or some other orange colouring)
Follow my standard soap making instructions (calculate for a 6% superfat), allowing the oils and lye water a good 6–8 hours to come to room temperature.When the soap reaches a light trace, add the essential oil and clay. Divide the batch in two, and stir the buriti oil into one half. Pour the soap into the mold, alternating between the halves, drizzling to swirl.
Let saponify in the mold for 24 hours before slicing and curing for at least 3 weeks.
I’ve never had a Gin and Tonic, but this soap sounds wonderful!
GASP! You must make yourself one straight away, they are fantastic! 😉
I LOVE sipping on a beautifully refreshing gin and tonic as the sun sets behind the spectacular mountains. This soap sounds so nourishing and uplifting. Great recipe 🙂
Oh, Victoria, now you’ve got me all distracted and thinking about vacationing in the mountains… but now I have to go to work 😛 Drat! Thanks for reading 🙂
Can the lard be replaced with Crisco?
I’ve never tried it, but David over at About.com says you can! Just be sure to calculate the lye properly and you’re good to go 🙂
Hi Marie,
I want to make this soap using juniper berry powder. What are your suggestions for using the powder instead of the EO?
Thanks
Hey Kristen! In my experience, powders never really contribute any scent to a bar of soap. They just sound fancy, add a bit of exfoliation, and in the case of something like peppermint powder, add a bit of a chill effect. I bought some vanilla flecks a few years ago that were supposed to add a lovely vanilla-ish warmth to everything they were added to—instead they just add little dark brown flecks. So, I would guess that unless your juniper berry powder is very, very fragrant you will likely just end up with a slightly powdery soap that’s the same colour as the powder (or just brown, which usually happens after saponification), with little to none in the way of a juniper/gin scent. It’s worth a try, though!
Hi,
I’m a little confused. When I’m letting the oil and lye water sit 6-8 hours to reach room temp are they sitting separately or have I combined them without mixing? If I’m letting them sit there separately doesn’t the oil like unmelt, wouldn’t the lye and water separate?
So I guess my main question is am I adhering to your standard soap making recipe to the point that I wait until both the lye water and melted oil reach 100-110 degrees before I mix them(using the immersion blender?) AND then wait 6-8 hours till they cool down to room temp before I mix them again to get light trace and then separate and pour and do the swirly thing?
Hi Jade! You’re letting them sit separately to come to room temperature instead of waiting for them to come to 100–110°F. Because they are mixed at a lower temperature, you have longer to work with the raw soap to get swirls before it gets too thick on you. You also don’t have to babysit the two different mixtures to try and get them to settle at the same temp—they’ll do it automatically if the temperature you want is the ambient temperature 🙂
And no, the lye & water won’t separate because they make a solution, like salt or sugar water. The lye dissolves in the water and stays there unless you over-saturate the solution (at which point the excess would start to precipitate out of the solution, but not all the lye), which you won’t do if you follow the recommendations of the calculator.
The oils will likely thicken up a bit, but because there is so much liquid oil in this soap you won’t end up with a solid mass. If it thickens enough to be a bit opaque you can just pop it on the stove for about a minute, stirring. It’ll almost immediately go fully liquid again—just don’t heat it up more than a degree or two.
Hope that clears things up 🙂 Have fun!
AwesomeeThanks!
🙂
You’ve created a soap making monster. Everyone I know is getting soap for the next 5 gift giving holidays!
Do you think replacing the buriti oil with sea buckthorn oil would create a similar or at least acceptable coloring for this soap?
Thanks for creating and maintaining this amazing website.
Hahaha brilliant! I’ve become one as well, good things all my friends haven’t gotten into it as well or I’d have a hard time getting rid of it all 😉
From what I understand, SBO varies greatly in brightness/colouring. The bottle I have would sort of work, but I have friends that have bottles that are suuuuuuper bright. It’s definitely worth a try, but if yours isn’t very vibrant, it could be a very expensive alternative.
Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me!