Welcome to the start of the 2017 Christmas DIY season! As usual we’re kicking off with soaps so they’ve got plenty of time to age while we round off our gift sets with other goodies like lotions, lip balms, body butters, and other varieties of pampering goodness. The Vanilla Spice theme is one you’ll be seeing carried through to lots of other delicious projects, so if you like it, make sure you’ve got the essential oil blend on hand—it will definitely be making some repeat appearances! But for now, let’s make some Vanilla Spice Christmas Soap.
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I owe Crystal a thanks for this theme—she sent in a recipe request for something similar to the (discontinued) Christmas Vanilla Spice scent from The Body Shop. I have no experience with the original, but I loved the idea of sweet, warm vanilla accented with holiday spice notes as a theme, so here we are!
These bars are mostly a deep, warm brown with a lighter, nougat-y pot swirl, a spoon-sculpty topping, and a healthy dusting of a beautiful antiqued glitter. The scent blend is a combination of benzoin resinoid (that’s our vanilla note), spiced up with some cinnamon bark, clove bud, and nutmeg essential oils. I know cinnamon bark has gotten a bit pricey in the last few years, so I’ve kept the amount fairly low. If you don’t have it you can try using cassia instead, though I haven’t tried it myself.
This lovely antiqued gold glitter is from YellowBee—swoon! The link is in the recipe.
I wanted to ensure I’d have a fairly lightly traced batter to work with, so I tweaked my usual fat ratios to tip the balance more towards softer oils, like rice bran and avocado. By reducing the tallow amount and using avocado oil instead of shea butter I created a batter that could be worked with much longer without getting thick and pudding-like. I also worked with this batter a bit warmer than room temperature—the oils were just slightly warm to the touch when I added the lye solution.
Since this soap contains cinnamon essential oil it tends to get rather hot in the mold, so I recommend not covering or insulating it, and leaving it somewhere relatively cool to saponify. I did all those things and still got a bit of a crack across the top within the first two hours, so you may even want to pop yours in the fridge for the first couple hours, especially if your mould is better insulated than mine.
The final bars smell amazing and look like artisanal fudge—you might want to warn your recipients lest they end up having some sudsy burps!
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
Vanilla Spice Christmas Soap
40% rice bran oil
25% refined coconut oil
20% beef tallow (wondering why?)
10% avocado oil
5% castor oilCalculate to 5% superfat
Per 500g oils:
- 2 tbsp white kaolin clay
- 21g | 0.74oz benzoin resinoid
- 5g | 0.18oz cinnamon bark (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) essential oil
- 2g | 0.07oz clove bud essential oil
- 1g | 0.03oz nutmeg essential oil
- Warm brown mica pre-dispersed in rice bran oil, as needed
- Titanium dioxide, pre-dispersed in rice bran oil, as needed
- Antiqued gold glitter, as needed
2020 update: Given the irritation potential for the spice essential oils, I’d recommend using a vanilla spice fragrance oil rather than the essential oil. Please refer to supplier documentation for maximum usage rates for the particular fragrance oil you’re using when used in soap/rinse-off products.
Kick things off by calculating out your recipe for the amount of soap you’re making to get the finite amounts of the fats, lye, and water. 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 (click that link if you aren’t!).
Prepare your mould—you’ll want a loaf mould for this soap. Melt your oils together in your soaping pot, and have one container with a pouring spout handy (I use these awesome funnel pitchers). Let your oils cool to slightly warmer than room temperature. Mix up your lye water and let that cool to about room temperature (you can use ice for part of your water to speed up the cooling process).
While everything is cooling, weigh out your essential oils, and measure out the clay. Whisk the pigments into a bit of rice bran oil until smooth; I used about 1/2 tsp brown mica, and 1/2 tsp titanium dioxide
Once the melted fats and lye water are just slightly warmer than room temperature, follow standard soap making procedure to bring them to trace. Once you have a relatively thin trace, blend in the essential oils, kaolin clay, and about half of the brown mica to make a warm, light brown batter.
Now it’s time to divide up our batter! Pour about 20% of it into the small pitcher and leave the remaining batter in the pot. Add some titanium dioxide to the 20% and blend to combine. Add more brown mica to the pot to ensure there’s a good amount of contrast between the two colours.
Drizzle the light batter over the dark batter and then pour the lot into your mould stirring as little as possible to prevent over-mixing. Sprinkle the top with glitter, and leave it for about twenty minutes to set up a bit before sculpting the surface of the soap with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle more glitter on top when you’re done sculpting. Leave to saponify for 48–72 hours. Remove from the mould and slice, and then leave to age for at least four weeks before using or gifting. Enjoy!
This looks amazing! I have a question about the essential oils since I recently bought cinnamon leaf oil. I just looked at your essential oils substitutions page and since cinnamon leaf and cinnamon bark oils are both healing oils they are interchangeable, correct? Why do you prefer cinnamon bark over cinnamon leaf? Is it more potent? Thank you! And Happy Thanksgiving!
In soap we rarely use EOs for their “properties” as it’s hard to say what survives saponification, and we lose so much during the aging process. In this case specifically, it’s all about scent, and the bark is the true spice scent since it’s what we get the spice from. I don’t find cinnamon leaf to be a great alternative for cinnamon bark, but it’s better than say, lavender 😛
Ok, that makes sense! Thanks for the reply!
Thank you, Marie! It was sooooo exciting to see my name as the idea source. This is truly one of my favorite holiday scents. Funny! Yesterday I prepared a batch of oils & butters for my next soap project. Today I find Spiced Vanilla from you. It’s like an early Christmas present for me. Thank you. I’ll be soaping tomorrow. Cannot wait!
Yay! Thank you so much for the idea, Crystal 🙂 I hope it comes somewhat close to what you remember! Happy soaping 🙂
Hi Marie! Quick question on the vanilla and vanilla-ish essential oils – benzoin, vanilla oleoresin, and peru balsam. Are they all interchangable? Or should certain ones be used in water-based solutions vs. oil-based? I LOVE all things vanilla spice and can’t wait for this series. 😀 So thank you!
Vanilla oleoresin is water soluble, while the other two are oil soluble, so that’s definitely a consideration. Beyond that, I tend to prefer benzoin as it is sweeter and the least expensive of the three 🙂
Hello! I am super excited to make this, it will be my first soap! I have a question. I have all the oils, except avacado oil. I have almond oil, sweet almond oil and macademia nut oil. Could I substitute either of those? Thank you so much!
PS: I just made your Downtown Abbey Serum the other day; loving it so much and I don’t look like a disco ball 🙂 It was totally perfect!
Hey Mary! And of those oils will work as a swap, or you could simply use more rice bran oil 🙂 And I’m so glad you’re loving that serum—I love the brightening effect, too!
Just wanted to let you know Piping Rock Canada has 100ml bottle of cinnamon bark on sale for $6.72 and one of my soaping friends uses it all the time …if you want to check it out:)
Sadly I really, really would not recommend that oil or that brand. Dr. Robert S. Pappas of Essential Oil University has tested it and it’s fake; you can find the report by clicking through here, but the gist of it is that it’s heavily adulterated and “the cost of this fragrance compound is less than $10/kg and true cinnamon bark oil typically costs $200-$300/kg”, which would explain why their offering is so much cheaper than everybody else’s.
Hi Marie! After having surgery recently I’m just now catching up with your newest recipes – I always look forward to your soaps!
But my question today isn’t specific to this super awesome recipe, that I can’t wait to heal so I can make! Lol its more of a technique question & if you haven’t already done so or thought about, a possible video idea…..
I started out doing cold process soaps but now mainly do hot process bc I love the rustic look it has. Normally most of my CP soaps are pretty flat on top and you my dear are getting really good at the top texturing sooooo…..any advice? I realize that there are as many ways to texture a top as there are soapmakers but perhaps in the future you could put together a video showing some different ways you’ve learned and/or developed to give a pretty top to the wonderful soap recipes you formulate?
Before I go I did want to ask your opinion on rice bran oil…. I’ve read about it,have many recipes that call for it but I’ve never bought it or used it and I’m wondering what your thoughts are on the properties it brings to soaps in your experience? Do you feel that it has advantages over other oils, say soy or sweet almond? I understand about substituting and how/what to do to sub out a different oil, but I’ve really been thinking about getting some to try and you seemed like the person to get an honest educated answer from. I personally use a lot of bear tallow, lard, coconut oil and Shea butter along with olive, safflower and grapeseed & canola. So anyway I kinda need a few more liquid oils to play with lol. Thanks so much for all you do, I appreciate you and love your blog!
Crystal
Definitely watch the videos for these soaps to see how I do the tops! There’s obviously just one top per video, but you do get to see it in action 🙂
I’ve been using rice bran oil as an olive oil alternative since I’ve been watching the price of olive oil going up, and I quite like it. It’s not a knock-your-socks-off oil, but that’s not the point of this category of oil in soap—it’s inexpensive and well behaved and produces a nice bar, so I’m pretty happy with it 🙂 I know some readers swear by it in lotions, too, which is somewhere I typically don’t use olive oil, so you may find it to be more versatile than olive oil 🙂
Awesome! Thanks so much! I do make lotions too and don’t really care for olive oil in it so rice bran seems like an even better idea now!
I’m playing with it in some lip balms and body butter bars right now and liking it in those, too 🙂
I’m making this today! Oils are melted and all’s cooling down. I’ll finish when I get home from dinner. A place called Fatz (I’m in the south. We eat at places called Fatz). The Calabash chicken is so good, you’d be tempted to forget you’re a vegetarian and stuff your tummy with it 🙂
Really excited about this soap for Christmas gifts. I’m going to make it a very pale blue though and pouring it into Cameo molds. I’m hoping the eo’s don’t discolor it. I rarely scent my soaps so don’t know enough about which ones discolor soap. These seem like the culprits that would.
Great exciting recipe Marie! Thank you!
OOoh! I’m afraid the EOs will definitely discolour it; I tried this recipe with a white batter and the soap ended up yellow haha. I hope the blue helps counter that!
It turned my pale blue into a Wedgewood blue. I am ok with it, since every soap I envision one way, turns out another way. It coulda been worse.
It’s like drawing that masterpiece in your mind. You know exactly how it will look when your finished but looks like a five year olds scribble when it’s complete.
Very cool! That sounds like the perfect hue 🙂 And yes, I totally agree on the five year old scribbler analogy lol! It’s very Schrodinger’s cat 😛
I am noticing your recipes all call for tallow, but lard is much easier to procure for me. Can you do a one to one swap or will that make a soft bar of soap? Is tallow better than Lard or just harder?
Yup, swap away! In theory the bars will be softer, but the difference isn’t big enough that I’ve ever noticed 🙂
agh….all the lye didn’t come out of my container and I missed it until after I got trace and poured my soap :(. What will happen with my soap? Will I have to dump it? It seized on me when I put in the fragrance and now this. So sad….It smells heavenly.
It looks like your super fat will just be higher. No big deal. 🙂
I made another batch and didn’t add the colour to it and blended them. It was too superfatted :P, now I have a beautiful soap. Thanks for replying though, I thought I wrecked it.
Woo, congrats on saving it! 🙂
Depending on the amount of lye that will missed it’ll increase your superfat, but it could be by a little or a lot. I see you fixed it with a blended re-batch, though! 🙂