I’m super excited to present my very first whipped soap recipe—Labdanum & Fir Whipped Soap! The road to this recipe was paved with lots of brainstorming, many experiments, and a fistful of earplugs to prevent hearing loss from very dedicated use of my electric beaters. I’ve devised quite a few different ways to turn my basic cream/whipped soap base into something lovely and wonderful, and this is the first I’ll be going over. It produces a beautifully light, aerated soap that makes a divine shaving cream and just might convince your toddler to take a bath. So, let’s get started!
First off, you’ll need a batch of some 50/50 NaOH/KOH soap paste in a jar. Once that’s softened up (which takes a full 24+ hours, longer than plain liquid soap), the fun begins.
Now, you can whip it up from here, and that’ll work pretty well at first. You’ll be amazed at all the amazing whippy-ness, and how it looks like whipped cream and is just amazing. It’ll multiply in size over and over again, and you’ll be thrilled. But then you’ll wait a day or two, and it’ll seriously deflate into sort of sad, dried out crusty thing. So, if you want to whip it straight away, use it straight away (it won’t be terribly soapy, either, since it’s mostly air—kids will probably love it).
If you don’t want to use it all right away, we’ll need to stabilize the soap. That’s where stearic acid comes in. Stearic acid is a hard fatty acid. It’s very common, and can be derived from animal fat or some vegetable oils, like unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) and palm oil. I have not had much luck finding pure stearic acid that says it’s been sourced from beef tallow, but the EWG says stearic acid is “primarily derived from rendered fat of farm and domestic animals”. Anyhow, all that is to say I’m not certain what the source of mine is. If you want to avoid stearic acid, some of my other whipped methods use other things, so stay tuned for those 🙂
Melting the stearic acid into the soap paste over a water bath. I’m using a water bath so I don’t evaporate off the water I just softened the paste with.
Anyhow, I’ve chosen stearic acid here because it has a relatively low melting point (about 70°C), so it will melt in a water bath. It also hardens back up quickly, and lends fantastic structure to the whipped soap, which is otherwise very prone to running off into overly whipped fluff land in an instant.
We’ll melt the stearic acid and softened soap paste together in a water bath. Be extra super sure that the stearic acid has melted completely, otherwise you’ll find wee beads of stearic acid in your final product. If that does happen I suppose you can just call ’em exfoliating beads, but I’d definitely recommend avoiding that in the first place.
Once everything is melted together, we add some vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada), and we whip! The glycerin serves to hydrate the soap enough to whip it up, but it doesn’t evaporate off in the same way as water, which would dry out the soap.
When you’ve got a lovely whipped consistency, it’s time for essential oils, clays, and anything else you’d like to add. After that you’ll want to gently spoon it into a jar for storage and use. You can use it straight away, though I’ve found it softens up in the first few weeks, so be prepared for a bit of a texture change.
And we did it! Whipped soap! Exciting 😀
2019 update: I’m afraid I can’t offer much in the way of detailed troubleshooting information for this project as I haven’t made whipped soap in well over 4 years and my memory of the process is limited to my notes, which you’re reading here. Sorry! As you can see, it worked well for me back in 2014, but it has been a long while since I’ve made it.
Labdanum & Fir Whipped Soap
100g | 3.5oz cream/whipped soap base
100g | 3.5oz just-boiled water40g | 1.41oz stearic acid (USA / Canada / UK)
6 tbsp vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)5–8 blobs labdanum essential oil
5–10 drops fir essential oil
1 tbsp French green clayCombine the soap paste and the just boiled water in a container with a tight fitting lid. Mash the paste down so it’s submerged, seal the container, and leave it for at least 24 hours for the paste to absorb the water and soften.
Once the paste is all softened up it’ll be quite thick and a bit slimy. Place it in a double boiler with the stearic acid and melt everything together. Make sure it’s really, definitely melted so you don’t end up with little beads of stearic acid in your final product.
Remove the paste from the double boiler and transfer it to an electric beater friendly bowl. Give the paste a quick whip—not much will change. Now add 2 tbsp of the vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada) and beat it all together. The mixture will start to turn white and look a bit whippy. Beat in another 2 tbsp of glycerin—at this point mine sort of looked like a smoother version of whipped cottage cheese. No worries! Add the last 2 tbsp of glycerin and whip it up—you’ll end up with a beautiful, light whipped soap.
Blend in the essential oils (tweak the amounts to make your nose happy) and the clay. Gently spoon the soap into some pretty containers with lids. You can use it right away, so pop it on your bathroom counter and enjoy!
Wow, this looks great! I may tackle this recipe one day, but for now I am sitting back in awe! Great job! And I am of the same mind, I love to share ideas and how-to’s with others. Appreciate your knowledge and research, you are amazing!
Thanks, Anna! I had so much fun getting this figured out 🙂
I have to agree with Anna. Thank you so much for your research and all your shared ideas and knowledge. I too had looked at whipped soap and discovered the unhelpful secret yahoo group – along with not much other helpful info. on the web. So happy you created this recipe. Seriously whats so secret about whipped soap – its not like its patented or something. Anyways.
Thanks, E 🙂 I had a lot of fun with this project, and felt so victorious when I finally hit on something that worked! I will also admit there was definitely some glee around outing whipped soap, haha 😉
Just wondering…’cause it’s happened before…does this final product eventually lose all it’s fluffiness/air, or does it remain forever in it’s cloud-like appearance.
So far so good 🙂 I posted about it on Facebook last night! Just make sure you’re stabilizing it as directed here, and not just whipping it up straight away.
I totally agree with Anna! I am in awe as well! That looks AMAZING!! What a beautiful gift that would make to someone VERY special 🙂 Just gorgeous!!
Thanks Victoria!
It looks lovely. I was wondering…….. I know that some people whip, then freeze, then whip, then freeze, etc. What is the purpose of the freezing, and does that help the final product?
Hi Jeanna! I haven’t tried it myself, but I’d imagine it’s to stabilize the mixture.
Another beautiful product Marie. Thanks for sharing. What (just a thought) of a bit more color (different colors) for kids – like finger paint for bath time? It just looks so nice and fluffy!
Thanks, Mary! You can definitely add more colour and turn this into finger paints if you want to—how fun!
Love this post! I have been looking at foaming foot scrubs, and other foaming scrubs with either sugar or salt, would this work for that?
Hi Nicole! This whipped soap is not a concentrated surfactant, so adding it to something will not automatically make it lathery 🙂
Do you get any bubbles from this recipe? I just finished making it, added french pink clay and fragrance , it whipped up beautifully but when I washed my hands it was like a thick cream on them with no bubbles. I had taken a small amount out when i made the paste a few days ago, added water then next day just eyeing it added stearic acid and glycerin, it did not whip as well as the original recipe amounts, but when I wash my hands with it I get bubbles. Wondering why one bubbles and the other does not. any thoughts
I get some, but it is a rather low, creamy lather, which makes sense considering the soap is pretty heavily diluted with air. I can’t say why one would bubble and the other, wouldn’t, though—not without some specifics about how your eyeballed measurements were different from the originals.
Where did you get the container? I have been wanting one of those for a long time.
Hi Xander! This particular container is from Harrods in London, England. It came with cheese in it, and I inherited the container after the cheese was gone 🙂
I’m going to try to make this as a Christmas gift! However, I bought whip soap base from etsy. Should I still melt it with stearic acid, or will the stuff I bought be fine on its own?
Hi MollyGrace! I have no idea—I have no idea what’s in whatever you bought 😛 What does the seller recommend? I’d probably do that.
Hi Marie,
I guess this is a really late comment, but woud be grateful for a reply. I was just wondering if I need to add preservatives to this since water is used to soften the soap paste? I’m hoping to make these to give as gifts, so I don’t know when the recipients would actually use it. Please let me know. Thanks!
You’ll find your answer in the FAQ 🙂
Would you simply increase the water content to make this more a creamed bodywash consistency?
In theory, I suppose so, but I have never tried it so I really can’t say 🙂 If you try it, please report back!
I’m excited to try this. I’m wondering if the whipped soap could be stored in a squeeze bottle or pump. Do you think this type of bottle would ruin the airy texture or is it too thick? I’d like to use it in the shower and don’t want extra water getting into it. Thanks.
Hi Greta! You might be able to get away with a squeeze bottle, but I’m afraid that might just squash all the air out of it—you’d want to be sure it was a fairly soft squeeze bottle with a pretty wide opening. I’d stay away from pump-top bottles, this soap is too thick for them in my experience.
I made this last weekend and just tried it out yesterday.
It and the cream soap base was super easy to make, except that I kept forgetting that the soap base and other ingredients need to be room temperature for the whipping to happen correctly (I made like three of your whipped recipes in the same afternoon, and finally got that detail down).
I was initially skeptical about the clay, because when I added it in to my beautiful creamy whipped soap that looked like something I wanted to eat, the clay made the whip a little chalky and stiff. Just a bit. However, when I actually tried the soap, WOW. It doesn’t foam like I was expecting, it just smooths into beautiful lather, and the clay gives it great slip. I used it to shave my legs in the bath, and it was perfect.
My husband is going to try it for shaving his face, soon — I’ll update with his verdict.
Hi Diana! I’m so glad you are loving the whipped soaps 😀 They are so perfect for leg shaving—I kind of missed the dodgy stuff in the can until I figured this stuff out! I look forward to hearing what your husband thinks 🙂
Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge with us. I’ve spent a lot of time browsing on your blog and printing out recipes. Have yet to make something, but I will! In my online research, I came across this little tidbit regarding cupuacu butter:
I found this quote here: http://www.ingredientstodiefor.com/item/Cupuacu_Butter/804
“TIPS:: Cupuacu Butter contains about 38% stearic acid … if you wanted to clean up your label you could use it instead of stearic acid so, if your formula calls for 2% stearic acid you would use 5.27% Cupuacu Butter and you would be getting the same 2% stearic acid (2 / .38 = 5.27%) but you would be adding a host of other benefits, including skin protection and moisture, while improving your product’s label appeal. ”
I was wondering if you think that using this butter in place of the Shea for the cream base, might make the addition of stearic acid in your recipe above unnecessary?
Love your blog, thanks!
Hi Georgialee! I’ve stumbled across that same tidbit 🙂 It describes something akin to swapping out sugar in a cake recipe for carrots. Carrots are about 5% sugar, so that should work, right? Just use… 20x the amount of carrots as there was sugar in the cake recipe and it’ll be fine, no? 😛 Obviously not, haha. If you added 20 cups of carrot puree to a cake recipe it would seriously throw off the balance of the recipe, and that’s what would happen here, too 🙂
I do have a version where I use cocoa butter instead of stearic acid, but it does produce a whipped soap with more of a marshmallowy texture than the light and whippy texture we get from stearic acid 🙂 Cocoa butter also has way more stearic and palmitic acid in it than cupuacu butter does, and even then, we don’t achieve the same thing.
Well, don’t I feel silly for not checking out your other recipe first! I didn’t know that about cocoa butter though. Do you know of a site that tells what these various butters are composed of–stearic acid, palmitic, etc.? I’d like to find something I can compare to Wikipedia’s figures. They say cocoa and cupuacu are about even on the stearic.
Thanks for your answer. I really need to just get in and start experimenting, but I’ve always hated ineficiency and “re-inventing the wheel” and want to get all the lowdown on how to do it perfect the first time!
I got my information from Wikipedia, too, if memory serves me 🙂
If you want to experiment you need to accept the inevitability of a few of your ideas not panning out the first time 😉 I’m on eyeliner trial #11 for the book right now… success requires a bit of failure, in my experience at least! Read what you can, but then dive in and see what happens 🙂 And take notes, of course. Lots and lots of notes! I would recommend following the recipes the first time to see what you’re aiming for/starting with, and then playing with it from there.
So….just whipped me up some soap! Yay!!! Am soooo happy for that, thanks for the recipe 🙂
One thing: I went ahead and of course had to try some 🙂 and am getting close to zero bubbles 🙁 I know this is CREAM soap, but no bubbles:( Did something go wrong?
Woohoo! And yes, this is a fairly low lather soap, more like shaving cream from a can. You can spread it on and it’ll do it’s cleaning job, but you won’t get super crazy bubbles as you use it.
I’m pretty sure my soap is acting weird,it’s switching between liquidy to solid and vice versa. Not sure if other people have the same issue or am I the only one.
That is super weird! I’ve heard about a change of state before, but never a back and forth :/ Did you make any changes to the recipe? How are you storing it?
Thank you for your recipe, made some paste this morning and was wondering how I could tackle the no /to/ low lather issue…could I add SLSA to the finished cream soap for a lather boost? Thanks in advance : )
I suppose you could, though having so experience with surfactants I’m afraid I can’t offer any guidance 🙂
Oh my goodness ! I am so excited right now !! I already make liquid soap, and soap bars. Now I’ve finally found a website (meaning yours), that is willing to share on how to make whipped soap. I’m going to try this REALLY SOON! Quick question, is palm stearic acid the same as stearic acid ? I want to make sure I use the right thing here. Thanks!!
😀 Woo for sharing! Palm stearic acid should be the exact same fatty acid makeup, it just has a clearer lineage than plain “stearic acid” (which is usually made from coconut or palm, but it’s not always clear which).
As the base is made specifically for whipped soap would adding the stearic acid with my oils to make the base work? Does stearic acid convert to soap like the other oils? Why are soapmakers so possessive of whipped soap? It’s a bit odd 🙂
I’ve definitely seen whipped soap paste recipes that incorporate stearic acid straight into the soap paste, so I’m betting it works 🙂
Hi Marie,
Thanks for sharing this recipe! I whipped myself up some cream soap base and soaked the base with an equal amount of water (by weight). What is the texture of this mixture supposed to be like before you move on to adding in the Stearic acid? I’m worried my mixture is too runny as it’s the texture of really thin gravy, albeit a slimy gravy. More like a liquid soap. Is that too thin? Would adding more paste and letting that soak save it?
Hey Kaylee! It does sound like your soaked paste is a bit thin, but you should be able to fix that by adding a bit more paste like you suggested 🙂 It should be like a thinner jello.
Hi Marie,
I don’t have stearic acid, however, I’ve read that you can use Cetearyl alcohol as a substitute for stearic acid. Would this work for this recipe?
Hey Rebecca! I’m afraid I haven’t tried it and I’ve never worked with isolated cetearyl alcohol so I can’t really say. It may work, but I think it might yield a softer result. Point of Interest has a wee bit on cetearyl alcohol vs stearic acid here 🙂
Hi! great post. I was wondering how stable the whip really is. Does it melt and solidify and start to loose the fluff, or any general temperature issues? also does it seem to be stable over extended periods of storage? Thank you so much!
I actually just tossed some of this from when I originally made it (I found it in a jar squirreled away in the basement haha) and it was still all kinds of light and fluffy! So… that’s about three years ignored in a jar in a relatively cool basement.
Hi Marie, I just made the soap paste today for the first time and now am letting the paste soak in water to make this recipe tomorrow. I’m wanting to make a scrub whipped soap. Would adding sugar to this work as a scrub?
I suspect sugar will dissolve in the water part of the soap, so I doubt it. Jojoba beads would be a better choice 🙂
Thanks so much for the recipe. I would like to make the whipped soap. What is the shelf life?
Thanks,
Ann
I’ve got an entire FAQ on this 🙂
Hi Marie! I did this recipe plus the soap base but mine did not turn out as whipped as yours on the pic. I would liken mine to a cream soap. I wonder where I went wrong. It does create a lovely lather with a washing net though.
It’s pretty hard for me to have any idea where you went wrong without detailed information on your process. For all I know you might not’ve whipped it 😛 Can you please provide details?
Hi Marie,
How can we adjust the ph of a whipped soap when we want to use it as a shampoo? can we add some apple cider vinegar or citric acid at the end?
Thank you for sharing your recipes !!
Not really, no—I’ve got a whole FAQ article on this here 🙂
I would love to make a whipped soap but I only have the castile liquid soap paste from brambleberry. Is there a way for me to turn liquid soap paste into whipped soap? I bought a VERY large amount of it,thinking I could use it for these kinds of recipes too. Maybe if I whipped some shea butter, added some diluted paste, and whipped it some more…?
Hey Jen! Sadly, not really—that’s a bit like trying to make a loaf of rye bread and starting with a loaf of white bread. The ingredients of the paste are important, and you can’t change those if the paste has already been made :/
Thank you so much for the amazing recipe. I was looking for a cream soap recipe without surfactants for the longest time & finally saw this. Could you please let me know the percentage of stearic acid to be used in the superfatting stage. Thanks in advance.
FYI, soap IS a surfactant—an anionic one 🙂 And no, I can’t—what’s above is what there is. Happy making!