My deep dive into beverage themed soaps continues with this minty lime tribute to the Mojito. It’s bright green and smells wonderfully fresh, and I just love the sprinkling of coarse sugar on the top for a hint of sweet sparkle.

The base of the bar is more or less my all purpose bar, but with a touch of extra beef tallow and some added sodium lactate (USA / Canada) for a harder bar. The sodium lactate (USA / Canada) is optional, but I’ve been enjoying playing with it recently. It also makes for a much faster trace, so I’d really recommend room temperature soaping if you’re going to use it.

I used French green clay for the base green shade, adding some green chromium oxide for darker shades. I also played with adding a bit of silver mica to a small section of the soap, but the contrast didn’t end up being as high as I’d hoped, so it’s more of a stealth mica section than anything else (I’ve increased the amount of mica called for in the recipe, or you can just drop it).

I brought this soap to a really thick trace so I could sculpt the top up into a wee mohawk, and so it would support its own weight so I could play with some different layers. The thicker soap also supports the large crystal sugar I topped it with well.

I decided not to halve these bars as I usually do, resulting in jumbo sized minty goodness. I think you’ll love them!

Mojito Soap

25% olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada)
25% refined coconut oil (USA / Canada)
30% beef tallow (why beef tallow?)
15% unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada)
5% castor oil (USA / Canada)

Per 500g (1.1lbs) of oils:

• 2 tsp sodium lactate (USA / Canada) (optional—hardens the bars)
• 1 tbsp French green clay
• 15g | 0.53oz peppermint essential oil (USA / Canada)
• 15g | 0.53oz lime essential oil
• 5/32 tsp green chromium oxide, divided (I use these tiny measuring spoons for tiny measurements like this)
• 1/2 tsp silver mica
• 1/2 tsp mint green mica (or just more silver mica)
• 1/32 tsp mint green or silver mica  + 1 tsp liquid oil (for the topping)
• 2 tsp large crystal sugar

Kick things off by calculating out your recipe (unsure about how to use SoapCalc? I made a video to walk you through it!) for the amount of soap you’re making to get the finite amounts of the fats, lye, and water. Ensure you’re familiar with standard soap making procedure before diving in.

Follow my standard soap making instructions. If using, add the sodium lactate (USA / Canada) to the lye water after it has cooled and stir to combine. If you’re using the sodium lactate (USA / Canada) I strongly encourage you let your fats and lye water come to room temperate before combining. I haven’t tried using the sodium lactate (USA / Canada) above room temperature, but I did notice a much, much faster trace than I would usually get at room temperature, and it’ll only get faster at higher temperatures.

Once the soap has reached a pudding-like trace, blend in the clay, essential oils, and two smidgens of green chromium oxide. Use an immersion blender here so you can be sure all the clumps of clay and oxide are broken up, giving you a smooth bar without clumps in it.

Measure out about 5% of the soap batter into another container. The precise amount is terribly important, but I would err on the side of too little than too much. This is the portion of the soap we’ll be stirring the 4 dashes of silver mica and 4 dashes of mint green mica to, and you’ll be surprised at how far all that mica doesn’t go. For reference, I made a 750g batch and used 70g of soap batter. Stir the small amount of soap and micas together until smooth.

Pour half of the remaining green soap into another bowl and blend in the last 3 smidgens of green chromium oxide for a darker green bowl of batter.

So, to review: You will have a small amount of mica sparkly batter, and then equal amounts of light green and dark green batter. Three parts of soapy batter goodnes.

Now, for the layers! It is important that you have a rather thick trace here. The soap should be able to support it’s own weight, and when poured it should more drop/blob than pour, and then hold its shape (more or less) in the mould.

I started with a thin layer of the light green soap across the bottom, tapping the mould on the counter to cover the bottom evenly and knock out air bubbles. Then, I did two side-by-side stripes—one of the darker green across one half, and one of the mica soap (I used all of it) across the other half.

Up next, another layer of the light green (I used the rest of it), and then I topped the whole thing off with the darker green.

If you want to do a hanger swirl, now is the time. You’ll need a hanger that you’ve bent so it resembles a rather square “U”. The bottom should be more or less flat and as wide as your mould is long. The sides should come straight up (more or less…) and be longer than your mould is deep.

To swirl, hold the sides of your “U” and insert the flat bottom into the soap on one side. Push the hanger down and out, towards the opposite side of the mould, doing a little loop-de-loop in the middle of the soap, and then pull the hanger out the other side of the soap. If that made absolutely no sense, this video has a fairly good representation of it, though she just goes straight up and down instead of going across.

Blend the remaining mica and liquid oil together in a small dish and drizzle it over the soap. Use a toothpick to swirl, and then discard the toothpick.

Using a spatula, lightly dollop the soap up so it has a bit of a mohawk running down the center. Sprinkle that mohawk with the large crystal sugar.

Cover the soap (taking care not to squish your mohawk!), lightly insulate it, and let it saponify for 24 hours. After 24 hours have passed, remove the soap from the mould, cut it (I recommend cutting through the side rather than the top so you don’t drag the sugar through the soap, rutting it up), and let it age for at least 3–4 weeks before using.

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