I think it’s about time we welcomed summer with a straight up summery soap (even if it is barely spring… let’s just say we’ve built in ample aging time). This pretty pink bar is a tribute to pink lemonade, and as such it smells bright and lemony.
The pink hue comes from the addition of Australian Pink Clay. I love adding clay to my soaps for added slip and cleansing power, and I especially love to take advantage of my clays for their pretty colours.
I chose five fold lemon essential oil to scent these bars, but you could also look at litsea cubeba essential oil—it’s very lemony, but cheaper, and supposedly lasts longer as well. If you have both you could also consider doing a blend of the two.
The final bars are hard, sudsy, and wonderfully fresh, with a pretty gold shimmer on top to boot. Welcome, dear summer (eventually)—you’ve been sorely missed.
Pink Lemonade Soap
25% olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada)
25% refined coconut oil (USA / Canada)
30% beef tallow (why?)
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 Australian Pink Clay
- 30g | 1.05oz lemon essential oil or litsea cubeba essential oil or a blend of the two
- ¼ tsp silk peptides or a pinch of tussah silk
- 1/2 tsp gold mica
- 1/32 tsp gold mica + 1 tsp liquid oil of choice, for top swirls (I use these tiny measuring spoons for tiny measurements like this)
Use SoapCalc to calculate your final amounts of oils, lye, and water based on the size of batch you want to make. (Unsure about how to use SoapCalc? I made a video to walk you through it! Please 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 loose pudding-like trace, blend in the clay, essential oil, and silk. Use an immersion blender here so you can be sure all the clumps of clay are broken up, giving you a smooth bar without clay clumps in it.
Measure out about 10% 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 gold mica into, and you’ll be surprised at how far 4 dashes doesn’t go. We’ll be swirling the two parts together so you have a gold-ish swirl through the bars; use less soap here for a more noticeable gold swirl. For reference, I made a 750g batch, used 100g of soap batter, and added 5/8 tsp of gold mica.
Stir the small amount of soap and gold mica together until smooth. Transfer the gold soap back to the pot and stir the pot very, very briefly. Perhaps one or two strokes—you want a swirl, you don’t want to start blending the two parts (remember they will continue to stir as you pour the soap into the mould).
Pour the soap into the mould. Blend the pinch of gold mica together with a bit of liquid oil (specifics don’t matter much here, just choose something that doesn’t have a strong colour) to make a shimmery liquid. Lightly drizzle this shimmery goodness over the top of the soap. Then, using a toothpick, swirl away. Once you’re happy with the swirls, discard the toothpick.
Cover the soap, lightly insulate it, and let it saponify for 24 hours. After 24 hours have passed, remove the soap from the mould, cut it, and let it age for at least 3–4 weeks before using.
Another great idea! Thank you, Marie, for having a broader idea of “summery” than floral. I love flowers, but not most floral scented body products. Keep the recipes coming! By the way, we have had several days in the 80’s already here in Southern U S. I think it’s going to be a hot summer for us.
Thanks, Jennifer! Enjoy that beautiful weather 🙂
I love all of your recipes, your creativity and your knowledge base of all of these wonderful beauty and hygiene products ! I’m just curious, in regards to pink lemonade, why there isn’t an additional essential oil representing the “pink” part, like maybe pink grapefruit essential oil and a little red raspberry seed oil? I know the typical fruits in pink lemonade like strawberry and raspberry don’t make essential oils, but maybe there is an essential oil combo that would smell similar?
Hi Courtney! You can certainly feel free to add some more “pink” to your version—I thought I’d stick to the traditional lemon of lemonade, and red raspberry oil is pretty expensive to put in soap as a novelty—to me, at least 🙂
I know that citrus essential oils increase photo-sensitivity of the skin. Do you think these oils have the same effect on the skin when used in soap? It is a wash off product but still your skin absorbs some of the oil.
I’ve never had any trouble with them in soaps, and I’d have noticed—I’m very fair!
I have Australian Red Reef clay – do you think I could use that instead? Or go with rose kaolin clay? Even in a large batch you have to be careful with the red reef, a little goes a long way.
I think either should work nicely, just be sure to start small and work up to it 🙂
I should be able to substitute lard for the tallow, right? I’ll run it thru a calculator though….
Yup!
Hi there,
I have extremely dry skin and I am trying to come up with a soap recipe that is really moisturing.
So far my soaps are coming out fine but they are a little to drying for my skin.
I was wondering which fats and oils you would suggest and also if I should use a 6% super fat unstead of 5%.
Can you please help?
Thanks,
Janelle
It’s not about the superfat, it’s about the oils you’re using. Generally soft oils make for moisturizing bar. Things like coconut oil, palm oil, are drying. You want to be using stuff like Olive, Sweet Almond, Avocado, etc. Your cure times are much longer on those style of soaps but worth it if that’s what you need.
In particular is sounds like neem oil would be of real use to you. It’s cheap too which is nice. So look around for some neem oil soap recipe. Avocado soap and carrot soap recipes would be good too.
Cheers big ears! 😛
One of my favourite ways to learn about how different oils effect soap is to plug different percentages into SoapCalc and see how the numbers for lather, hardness, etc. change as I do. I’ve found it’s a good way to figure out what your priorities are in a bar of soap and see how that effects other properties.
Hi Janelle! Have you thought about trying a liquid soap? Because you can dilute the paste a little at a time, it would be easy for you to experiment with adding additional oils, or diluting it to different levels 🙂 You might also want to put a pump bottle of lotion right next to your sink. Soap works by emulsifying the oils on your skin (which cling to bacteria) with the water you’re washing with, and then washing all that away, so it’ll always be at least a bit drying.
A few tips….
If you don’t have sodium lactate you can use salt. 1/2 teaspoon per pound of oils. Make sure it’s fully dissolved in your water before you add the lye.
And citrus EOs fade notoriously fast in CP soap so you usually need to double up on them for any longevity – 2oz per pound compared to the usual 1oz.
Thanks, Bambi! I usually use the 5-fold citrus oils where I can, and you can add some litsea cubeba EO to help anchor them as well 🙂
While it’s true salt will harden the soap, it doesn’t bring the same humectant qualities with it that sodium lactate will bring.
Thanks, Ann 🙂
Hi Marie,
I tried to make this soap using a melt and pour soup base and then adding the ingredients all turned out well until the last step the swirls on the top where awful more like globs of mica submerged in my soap. Does this technique not work with a melt and pour base?
Thanks,
S
Hi Sammy! I’ve never used a melt and pour soap so I’m afraid I can’t say, sorry.