Simple Handmade Soap Recipe

If you’re like me, making soap at home is more than just a fun hobby, it’s almost like therapy or a soothing ritual.

Learning the craft of making simple handmade soap is a rewarding process that allows you to control ingredients and create a product tailored to your skin’s needs.

Here’s the most straightforward recipe for a basic cold-process soap that you can keep for your homestead and family needs, or even gift to friends and family 🥰.

Ingredient List

1. Lye Solution:
   • 4.5 oz (128g) sodium hydroxide (lye)
   • 10 oz (300g) distilled water
2. Base Oils:
   • 16 oz (454g) olive oil
   • 8 oz (227g) coconut oil
   • 4 oz (113g) shea butter
3. Optional Additives:
   • 1–2 teaspoons essential oils (e.g., lavender, tea tree)
   • Natural colorants (e.g., turmeric, activated charcoal)
   • Dried herbs or flowers (e.g., lavender buds)

Equipment

• Heat-safe glass or plastic container for the lye solution
• Stainless steel or heat-safe bowl for melting oils
• Stick blender
• Silicone soap mold
• Rubber gloves, safety goggles, and apron
• Digital kitchen scale
• Digital Thermometer (that reads room temp)

Instructions

1. Prepare Your Workspace and Safety Gear:
   • Work in a well-ventilated area.
   • Put on gloves, goggles, and an apron to protect against lye burns.
   • Many people choose to wear sleeves and pants for extra protection and of course closed toe shoes
2. Make the Lye Solution:
   • Slowly add lye to the distilled water (never the other way around) in a heat-safe container. Stir gently until dissolved. This mixture will become very hot.
   • Set aside to cool to around 100°F (38°C).
3. Melt and Mix Oils:
   • Measure and melt the coconut oil and shea butter in a double boiler or microwave.
   • Add the measured olive oil to the melted mixture and stir.
   • Allow the oil mixture to cool to around 100°F (38°C).
4. Combine Lye Solution and Oils:
   • Slowly pour the cooled lye solution into the oil mixture.
   • Use a stick blender to mix until it reaches “trace,” a pudding-like consistency that literally leaves a, “traced,” liquid that sits on the top when you drizzle it and doesn’t blend back in. This typically takes 1–5 minutes.
5. Add Optional Ingredients:
   • Stir in essential oils, colorants, or herbs by hand, ensuring they are evenly distributed. Be sure to look up which additives speed up trace, as some of them you might want to add BEFORE stick blending just because they accelerate trace so much.
6. Pour into Mold:
   • Pour the soap batter into your silicone mold, tapping gently to remove air bubbles.
   • Smooth the top with a spatula, or practice making fun designs/adding soap decor.
7. Cure the Soap:
   • Cover the mold with a towel and let it sit undisturbed for 24–48 hours.
   • Once firm, remove the soap from the mold and cut it into bars. We love this soap cutter from Amazon (perfect size yet not super expensive or industrial quite yet).
8. Cure the Bars:
   • Place the bars on a drying rack in a cool, ventilated area.
   • Let them cure for 4–6 weeks to allow excess water to evaporate and the soap to harden. You can always weight them before and after while they’re curing to make sure they’ve cured enough.

Tips

• Always measure ingredients precisely for safety and effectiveness. Making soap is actually based on a very specific mathematical formula (hence all the weird decimal amounts). It’s not enough to just get close to the amount, try to actually get the correct weighed amount as close as you possibly can.
• Avoid aluminum or tin containers, as lye reacts with certain metals to create a toxic hydrogen gas producing harmful fumes
• Use a strong durable glass bowl (pyrex makes perfect containers in my experience) or stainless steel buckets like the ones I love from here. I’ve used both, but our buckets – one for the milk and lye mixture and one for our butters and oils are my favorite to use for large wholesale batches.
• Label your soap as handmade and natural, especially if gifting. If you’re selling your soap like we do, make sure to follow the recent MoCRA guidelines for allergen warnings and labeling

With this basic recipe, you can experiment by adding your favorite scents and textures for unique, personalized bars of soap!