Let me be the first to say that I’m really surprised I haven’t made eucalyptus soap yet. First off, it smells wonderfully fresh and bright. Second, it’s super cheap, and the majority of my soaps are scented with the least expensive essential oils I can find, so I’m surprised I missed it until now. 100mL of Eucalyptus globulus essential oil isn’t even $5. Score! And, when combined with peppermint essential oil (USA / Canada) it gives you a bar of soap that’s a lovely thing to discover in your shower in the morning (you have shower soap elves too, right?).
I chose to colour the soap blue and green, using clay and some blue ultramarine. The shades I blended up really remind me of the Blue Mountains in Australia. Deep green trees, with a blue misty haze floating above them, blending into the sky. Sigh. I miss Australia.
The final bars are smooth, hard, and lovely. I decided to experiment with the addition of stearic acid for added hardness, but you’re welcome to simply use more lard or beef tallow if you don’t have any. The bars great for shaving (thanks to the clay), soaping, and shampooing. They’re bright and fresh, and they’ll give your nasal passages a hand if you happen to be a bit congested. Give them a try!
Peppermint & Eucalyptus Soap
20% olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada)
20% soy bean oil (or olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada))
25% refined coconut oil (USA / Canada)
15% unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada)
14% lard (or beef tallow)
5% castor oil (USA / Canada)
1% stearic acid (or round the lard up to 15%)5% superfat (aka 5% lye discount)
Per 500g (1.1lbs) oils:
- 15g peppermint essential oil (USA / Canada)
- 15g eucalyptus globulus essential oil
- 1 tbsp dark French green clay
- ½ tsp blue ultramarine, divided
Calculate your recipe using SoapCalc to get your final, finite amounts of the fats, lye, and water.
Follow standard soap making procedure. I recommend letting the oils and fats come down to room temperature before combining as it gives you more time to work. At trace add the essential oils, the clay, and a small amount of the oxide (maybe 1/3 of the ½ tsp). Use an immersion blender to thoroughly blend the clay into the soap (otherwise you will have little clumps).
Pour half the soap into your mould.
Blend the remaining blue ultramarine into the remaining soap and pour that half into the mould. Swirl the two halves together using a spoon.
Let saponify for 24 hours before un-moulding and slicing. Let cure for a minimum of three weeks before using. Enjoy!
They look lovely, very fresh and cloudy! That kind of soap would be nice at summer time. I like your round mold, too. Where did you find so cheap eucalyptus eo?
Thanks, Signe! The eucalyptus EO is from New Directions Aromatics 🙂
Have you tried Wellington Fragrance Co.? http://www.wellingtonfragrance.com/ They are in Livonia, Michigan (which is not to far from Canada), their prices are good and they ship fast too! I have been very happy with their products.
Wellington does have a $50 minimum or you pay a $5 service charge, but it has never been hard for me to come up with that much for one order (my problem is keeping the total down). 🙂
I haven’t, but it’s really not the distance from Canada that’s the problem—it’s the border. Things can get caught up in the border for ages and ages—it has taken me over 6 weeks to get some packages, and some never arrive at all. They simply never clear customs and vanish into the ether, along with your money. Additionally, cross-border shipping is ridiculously expensive. So, sadly, I won’t be trying them (or any other American suppliers) anytime soon 🙁
Lovely blue and white soaps, never would have thought to combine eucalyptus and peppermint EO! Sounds wonderful! I like the round soap mold too! Can you tell me who makes it?
Thanks, Debra! The round mold is from New Directions Aromatics 🙂
That soap sounds amazing! The first soap (and only so far, haha) I made was the christmas soap you posted last December. I waaay underestimated how much EO I needed, and ended up combining some Eucalyptus oil with my Peppermint oil. It ended up amazing! I think your recipe (for the christmassy soap) called for mostly peppermint oil with a hint of vanilla oil. Well, it ended up being like a mixture of 50% vanilla, 40%peppermint and 10% eucalyptus. Still quite yummy smelling, but I’m anxious to make it again, according to your directions 🙂 Also, I totally understand the customs clearing problem with shipping. Right now I’m living in Germany, and it takes for EVER to get anything over here. Even if it’s just coming from the UK.
ANYWAY, I do have a question about this recipe, and most other soap recipes. Does the clay that you use have the same dyeing/running effect that the oxides have? I used red and green oxide for my first batch of soaps, and the colors bled all over the shower/sink. So I’m a little weary on using the oxides again, or clay, if the color in the clay runs like did for the oxides.
Hi Jillian! I’m excited to hear you tried my Christmas soap for your first-ever soaping adventure 🙂 It sounds like it turned out really well, but yeah… soap is very EO hungry. Alas. ‘Tis why I use the cheap EOs for soap.
Clays definitely can have a similar effect as the oxides, depending on the clay and on how much you use. I’ve done some where I used lots of red clays and it looked as if I was hemorrhaging when I used them in the shower, lol (no harm to the shower though, thankfully). Smaller amounts of paler clays like French green and kaolin seems to be ok, though. I think the general lesson with using insoluble pigments in soap is that you can’t go for a full-on vibrant rainbow without some bleeding. If you’re worried about it, start small and aim for pastel shades, and then work up or down from there 🙂
welp great job again Marie! These soaps look amazing.
When using this type of mold how many ounces is the total product? i’ve discovered that calculating oil/butters to make soap is much easier when doing so by percentages, but I am not sure of how to convert the percentages of the individual cavities into total product quantity.
Also for American readers: I’ve ordered via both NDA and Saffire Blue. And although it may take longer for US customers to get our shipments, the shipping costs are not as prohibitive as they seem to be when ordering from the US and shipping into Canada. As a matter of fact, my most recent NDA is shipping from Ontario to Los Angeles. The exchange rate is in our favor as well 🙂
Thanks, Kristen! Ok… so. The circular moulds are definitely a bit more irksome than my tried-and-true, totally used to it wooden mould. The first thing I did was measure out the capacity of each of the cavities (I bought both the circular and the oval moulds). If my memory serves me correctly, the round ones hold 200mL per cavity, and the oval ones hold 250mL per cavity. So, the round tray holds a total of (200×12) 2400mL soap batter, and the oval holds 3000mL.
From there I went to my soap recipe, calculated the full recipe, and then added up the total weight of everything—water, lye, and essential oils included, not just the carrier oils. Now I’m sure I could do some kind of fancy cross multiplication something or other to get a bang-on number, but in the end I just jimmied with the amount of oils until everything added up to a grand total of 5400g (so I could fill both trays with one batch). That number ended up being a batch requiring 1900g fats, with 722g water, plus lye and essential oils. That batch ended up filling up both trays and a wee bit more.
So, it’s not exactly a science, but that’s how I did it, and it worked 😛
And yes, darn you and your strong dollar! I miss parity 🙁 Not to mention the shipping from Saffire Blue into the USA is only about $4 more than shipping within Canada. Shipping that is free within the USA usually costs me $70. Booooooo.
USA! USA! GO US! J/K Marie, I’m sure that Universal Healthcare means your side wins 🙂
I purchased my circular silicone mold from Bulk Apothecary and I will have to measure the amount of water that the mold can hold using your method. Thanks for the wonderful tips!
Yeah, I guess free healthcare trumps cheaper shipping in the end lol… I’m sure the amount I spend on shipping will never catch up to the amount of healthcare I used even last year 😛 (or at least I hope not…)
Enjoy your round soaps! I’m enjoying having the larger bars, especially for shampoo.
As a relative newbie I haven’t yet used lard/tallow…is there a substitute for that? If not, where do you buy your lard/tallow…soap looks divine and very much looking forward to giving it a go!
p.s. my round soap is poured into cleaned “pringle” can and cut from there…
Hi Jan! Welcome to the soaping world 🙂 I’ve written more about why I use tallow/lard & substitutes here, and on how to render your tallow own here. You can buy lard at the grocery store, either in near the butter, or near the shortening in the baking aisle. Just make sure it says 100% lard (though it may have some antioxidants like BHT as well). You can usually get tallow by asking a local butcher—it’s usually a waste product for them, so they’re happy to make a small profit off something they usually have to throw out.
Great idea with the chips can! Free soap mold + excuse to eat more chips = perfection 😀
Thanks for the refreshingly quick response! Thanks for the links, and I agree, it can be quite an ethical dilemma..however my love of soap making will prevail (particularly with Avocado oil) and I’ll keep on researching, thank again 🙂
No worries, let me know how it goes 🙂 Also, if you love avocado oil in your soaps, be sure to give shea butter a try—I love them both as my luxury oils/butters in soaps.
I made this gorgeous soap the other day, thanks for the fabulous idea. I also didn’t have enough eo on hand so added some lemon – delish! I also use 30% lard for a much harder bar. It still lathers really well but lasts so much longer. Thanks for your blog, I love reading it. Getting supplies here in New Zealand can be really problematic and super expensive, so I love recipes with cheap ingredients!
I’m thrilled to hear it, Debbie—the eucalyptus soap has gone home(ish), down under 😛 Your variations sound fantastic as well. Whereabouts in NZ are you? I visited a few times while I was living in Aus and have very fond memories of the beaches around Auckland, and of Cathedral Cove 🙂 Sigh.
lovely soap. can you use something other than lard or tallow?
I’ve written an entire blog on this 🙂
I’m looking forward to trying this! I made the liquid paste!! Turned out great, I was impatient for a three week wait. Heck I was so impatient I mixed your softening method with the mashing dilution one haha.. I’m wondering what is this superlye thing? With all I’ve read I thought I had a handle on it, but some of y’all are saying you use avocado for it. Is it just extra oils, or extra oils with lye? Thanks!!
Hi Colie! Are you talking about superfatting or superlye-ing? Are we talking bar soap or liquid soap? I’m a bit confuddled about precisely what you’re asking about 🙂
Marie I follow your blog like a religion. This recipe has been wonderful. I have used it countless times. Sometimes using peppermint w/ eucalyptus sometimes spearmint w/ eucalyptus this last time both peppermint & spearmint w/ eucalyptus. Big seller for me. Thanks.
Hi Cindy! Thanks for reading 🙂 I would ask that if you are going to sell products made from recipes I have painstakingly developed, that you please commit to purchasing a copy (or more!) of my book when it is released 🙂
I made this soap and gave it away for Christmas presents. OMG, everyone LOVED IT!!! Marie, thank you so much for this and all your wonderful recipes!!!!!!
Wonderful! I’m so thrilled they were a hit 🙂
So, I made soap. Last month I made your liquid soap paste and since I couldn’t resist and didn’t want to wait for the dilution part of it, I made your Egyptian Magic cleansing balm and it turned out great! A little irritating when it got into my nose (yes, clumsy) but it leaves my skin so clean and fresh, I love it!
So I figure that if I could make liquid soap I can totally make bar soap so I gave this a try, you really made it sound so easy so I had to try, and I have to say that I am stunned of how ridiculous easy it is, I mean my soap was simple, no coloring, nothing fancy but I have soap! Yeah!
Now, I’ll get back to you in 3 weeks but I think my newly discovered love for soap will not go away
Yay! I’m so thrilled you’ve gotten into soap making, and I’m extra thrilled that I helped 🙂 Welcome to the wonderful world of DIY soap!
Can you use something other then coconut? Want to make some but hubby is algeric to it??
Hi Christina! I wrote an FAQ article on this 🙂
Thanks, I’m an Aussie living in England I miss home so much. I have started making my own soap and this one just took the top of my to do list.
Enjoy! Thanks for reading 🙂
Do you sell any of your soaps? They look so nice. I would like to try to make soap but I have no idea what I am doing or where to get the ingredients needed nor do I have any idea what kind of lye to use or where to get the lye. I have never made soap before.
Thank You.
I’m afraid I don’t at this point 🙂 There’s loads of amazing soap for sale on Etsy, though!
Could you explain what the Superfats are? I’m trying to find them online and am struggling. This is my first time making soap so I’m a little lost.
I’ve covered this in the FAQ 🙂
How do you decide on a water discount? I’ve read on a site where they just double the amount of water for the lye (so, if it calls for 10 oz. lye, they use 20 oz. water). Is that safe? Easier to calculate for sure, but can it be done from soap to soap like that? Is that what Auntie Clara does too? Thanks for you help!
I usually just do what’s default in SoapCalc (38%) unless I’m using TD, where I’ll drop it to ~23%, as per Auntie Clara. Water discounting is still fairly new to me, though 🙂