This recipe makes a delicious, fresh and energizing soap! Using unrefined cocoa butter brings a natural chocolatey smell to the soap that is paired with roasted coffee essential oil, the vanilla notes of benzoin, and a subtle hint of jasmine for sweetness.
Cocoa Butter & Coffee Soap
With rich cocoa butter for a solid soap, scented with Coffee Essential Oil with Sweet Roasted Coffee and Vanilla notes
Yield: 10 Bars
Materials
Lye & Water
- 304 g Distilled Water
- 131 g Pure Lye Crystals
Hard Oils
- 294 g Coconut Oil
- 92 g Unrefined Cocoa Butter
- 83 g Shea Butter
Soft Oils
- 147 g Olive Oil
- 92 g Sunflower Oil
- 92 g Canola Oil
- 74 g Avocado Oil
- 46 g Castor Oil
Herbal Additives
- 4 g Coffee Essential Oil
- 4 g Benzoin Essential Oil
- 2 g Frankincense Essential Oil
- 1 g Jasmine Essential Oil
- 2 tsp Black Walnut Hull
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla Specks
- 1 tsp Cacao Nibs
Instructions
- Gather all your ingredients and supplies so that they are easily accessible, and put on your gloves and safety equipment on
- Weigh your lye in a container. Set aside.
- Weigh your distilled water in a BPA-free heat proof plastic pitcher (or other liquid). Set aside.
- In a well ventilated area or outside, wearing goggles, mask and gloves, slowly add your lye to your liquid pitcher. Use a stainless steel mixing spoon and stir it slowly. Be careful not to splash any liquid. Continue adding lye little by little and mixing so that all the crystals dissolve. Set aside in a safe ventilated area that pets and children cannot reach, and allow to cool while you move on to the next step.
- Weight your hard oils (Coconut Oil, Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter), place in a saucepan and heat on low
- Weight your soft oils in a pitcher (Avocado Oil, Canola Oil, Castor Oil, Olive Oil, Sunflower Oil), and set aside
- Take your saucepan of hard oils off the heat once the butter is all melted. Stir in your soft oils, then check the temperature. The ideal soap making temperature is 110 - 130 F, and the oil and lye mix should be no more than 10 degrees difference (Ie, if the lye is at 120, the oil should be somewhere between 110 - 130 F.
- Check the temperature of your lye. If it’s above 130 F, allow it to cool some more and check it again in 15 - 20 minutes.
- Continue checking the oil temperature. If the oil cools too quickly, you can set it on the stovetop again for another minute with the thermometer in. Once your lye mix and your oil mix is within 110 - 130 degrees, you can slowly add you lye to the oil *** If you don’t want to mix them together in the saucepan, you can transfer your oil to a large BPA-free heat proof plastic mixing bowl****
- Pour your lye into your oil slowly, and stir thoroughly with a silicone mixing spatula. Place your emulsion blender into the oil - lye mixture, and give it short bursts, stirring in an 8 movement. Occasionally you will want to use the silicone spatula to scrape along the sides and so some slow stirring. We want to reach trace slowly.
- Once the soap reaches a light trace (not too thick!) you can the Black Walnut Hull Powder. Mix thoroughly.
- Add your essential oils, stir thoroughly, and pour into the mold. Use the silicone spatula to scrape the edges of the bowl to get as much soap batter into the mold as possible. You can shape the top of your soap, or you can leave it flat. If you want a bit of texture, reserve 1/4 of the soap batter in the container, and use the emulsion blender to reach a medium-thick trace. This will make the batter thicker and easier to sculpt.
- Decorate the top with vanilla specks and cacoa nibs, spritz the surface with alcohol to avoid soda ash from forming and set it aside to cure for 24 to 72 hours.
- When soap is hard enough, loosen the edges of the mold, hold it upside down and apply gentle pressure to the bottom to release the mold
- Cut the soap with a soap cutter into even bars. This recipe can make 10 - 12 bars. Measure for precise dimensions. Avoid using a knife, the slanted shape will make a straight cut difficult.
- Allow soap bars to cure for 4 weeks, turning over every week to give each side a chance to cure. After 4 weeks the soap can be packaged and used.
Notes
Store soap in paper or cardboard. Avoid wrapping in plastic or airtight containers. Handmade soap should be kept dry and ventilated.
Use a soap saver or soap dish that drains to hold soap. This will extend the life of the handmade soap bar by allowing it to dry between uses.