How to make a great cleansing soap at home

Homemade soap is piquing interest because, I believe, people are starting to appreciate the simple ingredients and what goes on their largest organ. This recipe is fantastic for a homemade soap with castor oil that makes lots of bubbles, a beautiful lather, cleans well, and doesn’t leave your skin dry. Add essential oils for a nice scent or leave it plain, the choice is yours. Here is a homemade cold-process, castile-based castor oil soap for a 2 pound loaf.

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First Time Soap Making Experience

In the beginning of soap making, I made sure to follow a tried and true recipe to get started.

My requirements were simple: an easy to acquire and short ingredient list.

Olive and coconut oils are easy enough to acquire! So castile soap, it was.

My only issue with this WONDERFUL FIRST TIME SOAP MAKING RECIPE is that you will want to make sure it gets to a light to medium trace and allow for it to sit for 2 days before cutting.

Often times when I was excited and ready to cut my soap loaf, it would be gummy and need to sit longer. Usually a full 24 more hours and also taken out of the wooden box to sit for the additional 24 hours.

Then I figured out how to use the Soap Calculator to make my own recipes and the game totally changed when I formulated a castile-based castor oil soap.

Create your own soap is easier than you think

The geniuses over at soapcalc.net really hit it out of the park!

I admit the first time I ever checked out their highly recommended site from like every single soap blog I clicked on, I was overwhelmed!

It was hard to understand how to use but I was also like 25 seconds into soapmaking…

So I used a tried and true castile soap recipe to get started.

Then one day, months into soap making, I decided to try the Soap Calculator again to make my own soap and lo and behold! I got it this time!

Turns out that adding a little bit of castor oil to the olive and coconut oils gives homemade soap just a little bit more hardness while still allowing for a great conditioning, creamy, and bubbly soap.

Katie’s Original* Castile-based Castor Oil Soap Recipe

*Whether this recipe is actually original to me or not, I can’t say for sure. What I can say for sure is that I knew what 3 oils I wanted to use in this cold-process soap recipe and I knew I wanted to keep it simple. I plugged it all into the soap calculator and it did all the work for me to create this recipe to make and then share here with you.

For a 2lb soap mold:

20.80 ounces olive oil

9.60 ounces coconut oil

1.60 ounces castor oil

12.16 ounces filtered water

4.54 ounces lye (NAOH)

1 ounce essential oil

Yield from castile-based castor oil soap:

2lb loaf yields 9 bars of soap cut on a 2.5 with the soap cutter provided in the set linked below under SHOP THIS POST.

Reminders for handling lye:

• wear long sleeves
• don safety glasses (not your regular eye glasses or sunglasses)
• long kitchen gloves or short latex/vinyl examination gloves making sure long sleeves are covering wrist and arm.
• a mask such as an N95
• LYE TO WATER! Always add the lye crystals to the water, never the other way around
• Be in a ventilated area, preferably outside, when mixing the lye into the water
• Let your family and children know what you are doing and that you need a few minutes without them near it
• NO distractions! If you have little ones, consider doing this at nap time or bed time or when someone else is supervising the children. Soaping needs your undivided attention.

The Cold Process Way

1. Clear your workspace of clutter and sanitize the counter tops.
2. Grab your soap making supply basket.
3. Start by placing stock pot on the stove top on medium-low heat.
4. Put on your PROPER EQUIPMENT before proceeding to the next step: eye goggles, gloves, long sleeves, mask.
5. MEASURE EVERY INGREDIENT IN ITS OWN BOWL BEFORE COMBINING ANY INGREDIENTS! First olive, coconut, and castor oils, then water, then lye all in their own separate bowls.
6. Now pour olive, coconut, and castor oils into the stock pot and use spatula to stir together.
7. Carefully take bowl of lye and bowl of water outside along with stainless steel spoon.
8. Making sure gloves, mask, long sleeves, and goggles are in place; add the LYE TO THE WATER (lye to water, lye to water, L to W, lye to water, L to W, always LYE TO WATER).
9. Use the spoon to gently stir the lye into the water. The water will become cloudy (and HOT!). Stir for about 30 seconds then allow the mixture 30 seconds to settle down. You are making a chemical reaction right now which is why your mask is important for this 1 whole minute of mixing lye into water. When lye water is mostly clear, it is safe to take it back inside. USE CAUTION: BOWL IS HOT! Set the lye water aside on a towel or mat to protect your surface until it is needed next.
10. Now turn off the stove top with oils in the pot. Stir the oils in the stock pot to make sure the coconut oil has melted. Remove pot from the hot eye. (You can remove mask now but do keep on the gloves, long sleeves, and goggles for splatters).
11. Allow the lye water and the stock pot of oils to cool down to somewhere between 95 and 105 degrees Fahrenheit (liquid temps do not have to be the same; just in that range. Example: lye water can be 104 degrees and liquid oils can be 98 degrees and still be mixed.) This can take about 20-30 minutes to achieve. You will need to take the temperature of both oils and lye water several times. Use a paper towel to wipe candy thermometer between water and oil temp checks.
12. Once the lye water and oils reach somewhere between 95-105 degrees, add the lye water very carefully, as not to splash, into the stock pot of oils.
13. Next, use immersion blender to blend the water and oils together. KEEP THE BLENDER UNDER THE LIQUID WHILE RUNNING AND MOVE IT VERY SLOWLY THROUGHOUT THE POT OF LIQUIDS to avoid splattering the caustic soap onto yourself. Blend for 2-3 minutes on slow then rest for a minute or two before continuing to blend. You will repeat this cycle as many times as it takes to bring the soap to LIGHT to MEDIUM TRACE. You will barely see a line traced on top of the liquid when you use a spoon to drizzle soap across the top of the liquid in the pot, looking for a light trace. The light trace will not easily disappear back into the liquid but the drizzle will sit on top. A medium trace is easier to spot as you can visibly see the soap becoming much thicker.
14. Once light trace is achieved, add in essential oil and/or any other additives. Take the top off the oil to pour it in faster as opposed to dropping the liquid in one drop at a time.
15. Now use immersion blender for 30 seconds to blend the oils into the liquid. Adding essential oil to the batter will make it trace quicker so being efficient with adding EOs and blending again is important. Try to bring soap to a visibly medium trace.
16. Carefully remove blender and pour soap slowly into the silicone soap loaf mold (silicone part is inside the wooden part of the mold!). Use the spatula to scrape all liquid from the pot into the mold.
17. Gently move soap loaf to a safe place where it will not be disturbed for 18-36 hours.
18. Next, place a sheet of parchment paper over the top of the soap then wrap the soap loaf in a thick towel or a blanket to insulate the mold. The soap needs a slow cool down.
19. Check the soap mold after about 18-24 hours. If it still looks jelly or gummy, allow it to set for 12 more hours.
20. When it is time to cut the soap, remove towel/blanket and parchment paper. Wearing gloves, remove the silicone mold from the wooden loaf box. Gently pull the silicone mold away from the soap, turning the mold inside out as you remove the soap loaf.
21. Now place the soap loaf on the cutting board. I like to set the size to 2.5 before cutting. Use the provided soap cutter to cut your soap into bars.
22. Finally, space cut bars so they are not touching on a drying rack, cookie sheet, or parchment paper on an out of the way table to dry and cure for 4-8 weeks. Soap will NOT be ready to use for at least 4 weeks, more like 6 weeks or longer for the hardest soap. This castor oil soap will turn from yellow to white as it cures.
23. Flip the soap bars every few days to allow all sides and edges to cure.

When do I add colorants or other additives?

Some soapers like to add colors like liquid dye drops or mica powder. Some choose to add flower petals or herbs or coffee grounds.

As with adding essential oils, the soaper will add these in just after light trace and then blend for 30 more seconds to incorporate colorants and/or additives well.

NOTE: often times adding in extras speeds up the tracing process. Work efficiently.

You may prefer to simply top dress your soap loaf with crushed herbs or flower petals after it is poured into the mold.

How to clean up safely after soap making

Still wearing gloves, clean up your soap making session mess!

Place all utensils and bowls in the sink and wash with regular dish soap while wearing gloves. The soap is not ready to be touched with bare hands yet so keep the gloves on.

Allow utensils, bowls, and stock pot to dry. Then place all dedicated soap making items in a basket or container to be used next time.

SHOP THIS POST

TIP: thrift stores are great for buying dedicated soap making things cheap like glass bowls, pots, pans, and silicone and stainless steel spoons solely for soaping.

Immersion Blender

Kitchen Scale

Soap Making Loaf Set

Lye for cold process bar soap making (NaOH)

Candy thermometer

Essential oils from Simply Earth*

*Johnson Home NC is a Simply Earth affiliate who, if you use this link and code, will receive a commission at no extra cost to you! LINK here and use code JOHNSONHOMENCFREE for freebies for you, too!

Recommended Soaping Items to Search for While Thrifting:

• stainless steel stock pot (small 4-5 qt)
• silicone spatula
• stainless steel spoon
• glass bowls like Pyrex, 2-3
• immersion blender (ask to test before buying that it works)

More recipes like castile-based castor oil soap

If you’re into natural cleaning for home and body, you can find more recipes here:

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