My inner hippie (who is not very inner, let’s be honest) loves patchouli. And lavender. And the smell of rotting trees in the forest, and of the dirt and moss waking up in the spring. Fantastic. This soap is those things. Deep, earthy, a bit smokey, complex, and organic.
Kendra mentioned she’d made some lavender patchouli soap a few months ago, and the idea just stuck with me. When I finally got around to it, I mixed in some curcuma and hydacheim essential oils. I bought them because I was curious, so if you don’t have them, feel free to use more patchouli instead. Curcuma has an interesting dry, smokey, woodsy scent to it, whereas hydacheim is dry and spicy, with a hint of citrus, and quite a bit in common with patchouli. I doubt I’d buy them again as I consider them to be fairly similar to patchouli (and I like patchouli better), but they make a fantastic addition to this soap, swaying it to the more “manly” side of things, despite the lavender.
The colouring comes from a combination of clay and an oxide. One half uses white white kaolin clay (USA / Canada) and ultramarine pink oxide to get the purplish colour (ultramarine pink is really lavender… not sure what the person who named it was thinking), and the brown from rhassoul clay.
Lavender Patchouli 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:
- 20g lavender essential oil
- 14g dark patchouli essential oil
- 3g curcuma essential oil (optional, can replace with patchouli)
- 3g hydacheim essential oil (optional, can replace with patchouli)
- 1 tsp ultramarine pink oxide
- 1 tbsp white kaolin clay (USA / Canada)
- 1 tbsp rhassoul clay
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 oils. Divide the batch in two—stir the oxide and kaolin into one half, and the rhassoul into another. 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.
Love this idea! Cant wait to give this sort of recipe a try. Thanks 🙂
Thanks, Rachel! Let me know how it works out for you 🙂
Beautiful!
Thanks, Natalia—let me know if you try it 🙂
Looks great! Mark brought me some awesome soap back from the Galliano Island Soap Company. It’s not classified as a shampoo bar but it’s moisturizing and smells lovely so that works for me! I’m going to “unfollow” your blog in an attempt to get less emails, but I’ve imported your blog into my blogger dashboard, so I’m still reading it! You haven’t lost a follower 😛
Oh, lovely! You’ve got to love the Gulf Islands for all their fantastic artisans 🙂
Does the lavender come through at all in those proportions? I’ve never made CP soap, but in every thing else I’ve ever made the tiniest bit of patchouli will overpower other eo’s. Does the saponification process change that? Regardless, it is quite lovely to look at!
It does, but it is definitely a milder note—it sweetens and rounds out the patchouli, yet is still discernible as lavender to those who know it well. If you really love lavender (and patchouli less so), I’d tip the scales a bit more in its favour. I just finished my first bar of it today and I just loved it 🙂
I’m new to the soap making but I see the recipe as a cooking recipe so its not as hard as I thought it would be. My problem is with the percentage. I’m a southern cook so I haven’t run across recipes that call for percentages before. I’m not sure how to measure out percentage…??? I am a bit embarrassed to ask but I am interested in learning more if you could elaborate a bit…thanks
The reason I use percentages here because precision is super important when you’re making soap. The idea with recipes like this is that you go to SoapCalc and enter in the percentages and the ingredients. Then you can choose whichever units you like, and whatever batch size 🙂 Then you’ll end up with a super precise, easily scalable recipe, and because everything is in percentages you can easily choose if you want to work with grams or ounces or whatever. Just make sure you are working in weight, not volume! Volume is not precise enough for soap making.
So, an example would be: If your total weight of oils is 1000g, and the recipe calls for 25% olive oil, that would be 250g of olive oil (and so on and so forth). Does that make sense?
Hi Marie,
I love this soap! However, I was curious to know if you have ever attempted to make hot process [or crockpot] soap? I’ve seen recipes for it on:
http://www.mommamuse.com/2006/02/17/instructions-for-making-crock-pot-handmade-soap/
and
http://chickensintheroad.com/house/crafts/hot-process-soap-in-a-crock-pot/
Let me know what you think!!
Kristen
Hey Kristen! I’ve never tried hot process soap simply because it is so much extra work for what seems to be fairly small gains (less curing time). With the way I make cold process soap it’s about 20–30 minutes active time (more if I’m doing something fancy), and when I’m not doing anything, I don’t have to be watching a timer, or even be at home. So… yeah. I am planning on trying liquid soap sometime soon, though!
Hi! Greetings from Mexico in m y countr many ingredients for soapmaking are practically nonexistant. Anyway, I’d like to know what.can replace lard, I want the soap I make to be animal ingredients free. Thank you in advance!
Hi Irene! I wrote an article about why I use lard here—you should read it 🙂
Is it possible to soap too cold? We have baseboard heaters (ugh) which cost limbs and vital organs to run, so we generally rely on an electric blanket in our bedroom and the fireplace in the living room. “Room temperature” for me is something like 13-16 C. Would there be any issues using your room temperature method? Would love to NOT babysit lye and oil!!
From my experience, your biggest risk would be a false trace from the oils solidifying instead of the mixture actually emulsifying and starting to saponify. I would make sure you’re quite experienced and can really recognize a true trace before soaping at such a low temperature to avoid this, otherwise your batch will be ruined. You could also try to concentrate your soaping efforts in the summer 😉 Let me know how it goes!
Well, being not-so-experienced I decided to do the math to see what it would cost me to just keep the heat on in my work room. Fortunately, it being a super tiny second bedroom, it won’t be much at all. Yay!
Fantastic! 🙂
Hi Marie,
In a variation of your lavender lemon soap, I split the soap into two parts, and colored half with ultramarine pink oxide (I only used a tiny amount and had a very pale pink). The two swirled together well, and the top of the loaf was a nice pastel pink and yellow hue. Sadly, when I cut it into bars, I had really, really pronounced glycerine rivers in the pink, and the pink had morphed an ugly gray. The whole batch had some clay and titanium dioxide in it, but since the yellow part wasn’t affected, I’m wondering if the pink ultramarine may have been the cause. The colors stayed true on the edges, the top and the bottom, though, so maybe it overheated? Or maybe just the pink oxide was impacted by the heat? Both the oil and lye were at room temp, and I just insulated my mold with a towel; no extra heat applied. I looked on NDA’s website, but nobody had reviewed this oxide yet. Wondering if you’ve heard of this before? It smells great and I know it’s fine, but it’s so ugly it’s probably going to get rebatched 🙂
Thanks!
Leanne
Hmm, how very odd! I have never had oxides shift colour on me during saponification. I have had the glycerin rivers (example), but only when using quite a bit of oxide, and it sounds like you didn’t do that. I tried doing some research as well and I didn’t find anything on oxides changing colours. Your heat hypothesis sounds most likely since it was just the core, so perhaps next time drop the towel? How very odd. I’ll keep an eye out for similar reactions and let you know if I find/hear anything.
Thanks Marie! It feels like it will be fairly nice soap…and the funny thing, I’ve had two people say they love how it looks! My artist sister-in-law says it reminds her of an abstract painting. Beauty in the eye of the beholder, I guess! I googled the pink ultramarine, and apparently others have had it morph gray when they only used a bit. I did another batch with the pink mixed with blue oxide for a deep purple. I thought the purple was far too dark, but it’s a super light mauve now. So, I guess with this one, you have to use a lot.
Ha, how funny! One man’s trash and so on, I suppose 😛 Thanks for the tip on the oxide, though—I’ll be sure to keep that in mind 🙂
Hi Marie,
How do you know when you should insulate with a towel and when go without it? It gets fairly hot in my apartment this time of year and I’m wondering if there is a specific “room temperature” it should be kept at when curing in the mold.
Hi Jade! I generally insulate with a folded up sheet, though my soap does sit in my basement, which is always quite cool. I won’t insulate at all if the soap has some added sugar, like molasses, in it. If your apartment is already fairly hot, I wouldn’t bother insulating. From my experience a lot more can go wrong from the soap being too hot than too cold!
Hi Marie,
Just wondering if you have used or thought of using Irish Moss in any of your hair or face masks or even shampoo or soap bars.
Hi Jade! I hadn’t—I’d never even heard of it! But I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for it now as it looks super fun 🙂
so instead of waiting for the oil an lye to be around 100 degrees to mix them…this recipe you wait til room temp?
Totally new to soap making…and loooving patchouli…
Yup, exactly that! It is much easier and requires far less fussing, and it’s only a difference of about 20°F.
I saw someone had asked about when to insulate and when not to insulate – but your answer was illegible (it was just one long vertical line – weird format – not that your writing was illegible, LOL!).
So, when to insulate and when not to – I’m interested in what your experience has been. I made one of your soaps yesterday (the mermaid soap I believe with blue and green layers) and I had filled my mold so high that I couldn’t put a towel on top. So, I placed some tented cardboard on top and set it on a shelf in my basement, which is cool for the summer months – around 73. I’m hoping there was some gelling but won’t know until I take it out later today.
By the way, I LOVE your suggested lazy way to make the layers. So much better than all of the fussing I’ve seen on some YouTube videos and other soaping websites. Perfect!
Thanks again for all of your posts and recipes!! Love your blog/website and now your videos too!
Hey Shari! So… gelling. I don’t really care about it, and tend to try and avoid it rather than encourage or force it. I like the less saturated colours I get without a gel, and I find it’s easier to get a uniform look if I just go for no gel. Partial gel can look funny if only the middle gels. I usually don’t insulate my moulds and leave them to sit on the counter where it’s ~19—22°C. I think soaping at room temperature helps, too—that way the batter’s not too warm going into the mould.
I look forward to hearing how your bars turn out! Thanks for reading and DIYing with me 🙂