Lavender Cold Process Soap Recipe & Making CP Soap Guide with Pictures
One of my favorite hobbies is making something I can use.
I love making the miniature crochet, amigurumi, stuffed animals, and home decors, but making something I can use later is, to me, seems very economical.
One way to make your own soap is by the cold process method. Cold process is avoided by some soap makers, due to dangerous chemical we have to handle.
But just covering all your body, wearing googles, and being super careful can prevent unwanted situation.
You can find enough saying how dangerous it is to make the cold process soap, I will show you how I got this lavender cold process soap now.
This time I wanted to layer the violet color and on the top, just pour creamy soap color and use lavender buds as a decoration.
I also didn’t mix the colorant in oils, so I can see the dots in it. But then it might look odd. I won’t maybe try it anymore.
Here’s the recipe for this Lavender Cold Process Soap (Amazon Link too!)
Distilled Water — 11.14 oz
Sodium Hydroxide Flakes — 4.77 oz
33% Coconut Oil — 11.22 oz
33% Palm Oil — 11.22 oz
16% Canola Oil — 5.44 oz
14.9% Olive Oil — 5.1 oz
3% Castor Oil — 1.02 oz
0.1 % Vitamin E Oil — 0.03 oz
Lavender Essential Oil 40/42–0.34 oz
Sodium Lactate 60% — 0.34 oz
Ultramarine Violet Oxide — 0.1–0.15 oz
Lavender Buds — 0.1–0.15, just few.
And let’s get started.
Ice bath helps the Sodium Hydroxide Flakes melt, but this time I added too much.
I guess the ice water would work fine, I tried to keep the temp low for Sodium Hydroxide. But, ice can be avoided, but maybe just cold water.
My oil bin is this. I tried to get the larger one, but this still works.
Distilled Water 11.14 oz https://amzn.to/3hwG45D
Sodium Hydroxide Flakes 4.77 oz https://amzn.to/3jLyF5n
33% Coconut Oil 11.22 oz https://amzn.to/3hwGvgh
33% Palm Oil 11.22 oz https://amzn.to/3xfDg3x
16% Canola Oil 5.44 oz https://amzn.to/3heRjkr
14.9% Olive Oil 5.1 oz https://amzn.to/3dFoc7C
3% Castor Oil 1.02 oz https://amzn.to/369oOOH
0.1 % Vitamin E Oil 0.03 oz https://amzn.to/3dFoBHa
Lavender Essential Oil 0.33 oz https://amzn.to/3qIj9sp
Sodium Lactate 60% 0.33 oz https://amzn.to/3yixqOW
Ultramarine Violet Oxide 0.15 oz https://amzn.to/3AptoGd
Lavender Buds 0.1 oz https://amzn.to/3jGiDtq
Soap Mold with Acrylic Boards https://amzn.to/3Akb8hH
I forgot to mention, the reason why I use Vitamin E because it is fat-soluble antioxidant that helps extend the shelf-life of the oils.
And of course Sodium Lactate is for firmness of the soap. I used 1% for this soap.
Mini mixer won’t work for this.
My favorite hand mixer can mix the oil + Sodium Hydroxide water.
It will fasten the saponification process. Saponification happens when sodium hydroxide water meets the fatty acid, and it produces glycerol and a fatty acid salt, which is called “a soap.”
I don’t recommend using the mixer more than two-three minutes, because it will make the soap gel. It’s hard to pour, and hard to make a designed soap with it.
The soap traces, but I think this is too thin…
But still works! I am keep learning where I can kinda stop mixing them, and learn from the traces it make.
I wanted to make the gradation with this soap bar.
Divide the soap by four containers.
I mixed the Ultramarine Violet Oxide,
I didn’t mix the oxide with oil first, I wanted to keep the little dots.
But it doesn’t dissolve well anyway, I will try not to use the oxide like this anymore…
Pouring to the silicone mold.
This mold works, but next time I will show you how to make the soap mold from the milk carton.
Let the air out, and pull the bars out.
You have to pull it out at one time to make clean edges between the different soap colors.
Yays, done!
But I will cover this with, very white- soaps. The leftover in the container.
Make a bed for lavender buds, I just used some I have at home.
And pour the rest to the mold!
This part kinda crushed the soap layers underneath, but it turns out okay.
Decorate with some lavender buds, I’m done!
I kinda pushed the buds into the soap, but I shouldn’t done it.
Well, it turns out good, so I won’t say anything.
I left the soap bar for the couple of days, then cut them into little bars.
It wasn’t sticky like the castile soap, maybe that’s why we use the sodium lactate by 1%.
But it was still soft, so I left it to dry for awhile.
A day later, I cut the soap bar into little pieces.
They are about, less than one inch thick.
And the coloring looks so good to me,
I tried to keep the oxide like dots, little sprinkles,
but I am not sure if that was good idea. I might just use, edible candy sprinkles next time.
Thank you everyone, this was it.
I kept it in my bathroom closet for a month, I used it, it was okay;
and started giving them as a gift. Everyone liked it, I like it too.
Unfortunately the lavender scent is almost gone after the curing time of a month,
I can barely smelled the lavender,
but when you make the bubble with this soap, you could smell the lavender even more.
So for this lesson, I think I accomplished a good lavender soap.
Good bye & enjoy soap making :)
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