Luxury Soap Recipe & Tutorial (2024)

I decided to go ahead and make this soap now, even though it will be for Christmas gifts. I want this soap to have a nice, long cure time.

Because some of the results of the polls were so close, Iended up working in the top 2 ingredients from each category into the recipe. I scented this soap at half my usual rate, I wanted to keep the scent soft so that the specialty ingredients could really shine through. I’m so thrilled with the way this soap turned out, and I couldn’thave done it without your help! I've posted the recipe below; if you try it, please let me know -I’d love to hear about it! Until next time…Happy Soaping =)

Let's get started!

Here are the all oils and butters combined. Notice thelovely dark color of the oils when they are mixed all together? I usedextra-virgin olive and avocado oils as they are darker in color, and Iwanted to impart some of that natural color into the soap. I soaped with roomtemperature oils, so the only ones that I heated were the solid ones (palm oil,coconut oil, shea butter and mango butter), which I only heated enough to melt.

I froze the goat milk and almond milk into cubes (I've included the recipe for the almond milk below). After I measuredthe goat milk and almond milk into the container, I sat it in an ice bath, tokeep the milk cool while I’m adding the lye.

I’ve just sprinkled in a little bit of lye to start. Iincorporated the lye very slowly, stirring constantly. It took me about 20minutes total to incorporate all the lye.

Here is the milk/lye solution after 5 minutes, I’ve addedonly about ¼ of the lye at this point. It’s starting to melt the milks, butthey are not overheating at all. Slowly keep stirring and adding, stirring andadding!

This is 10 minutes after I first started adding the lye,I’ve added about ½ of the lye at this point. I’m not sure what the temperatureof the lye solution was at this point, but the container stayed cool to touchthe entire time I was incorporating the lye.

This is 20 minutes after I started and all ofthe lye has been incorporated. Here I’m adding sodium lactate, but this is anoptional step. I add sodium lactate to my soap to make it harder, which makesit much easier to unmold my soap! I use sodium lactate in both my cold and hotprocess soaps.

Next, I poured the milky lye solution through a strainer toremove any congealed fat or sugar from the milk.

Incorporating the oils and lye solution. I always whisk mysoap for the first 2 minutes or so before I start stickblending. It didn’t takeme very long to reach thin trace once I started using the stickblender.

Now that the soap is at a thin trace, I split the batch into2 portions; a larger portion that I am going to incorporate the honey into, anda smaller portion that I’m going to incorporate the chamomile extract into.

I decided to lighten up the smaller portion of the soapusing white mica, so that I could do a little swirl and have some contrastingcolor for the top of the soap. Here, I’m adding some super pearly white micathat has been dissolved in a bit of sweet almond oil. Next time, I would add abit more mica or add a bit of titanium dioxide, as there wasn’t quite enough colorcontrast.

I added the honey to the larger portion and chamomile extract to the smaller portion. I diluted the honey in a little bitof distilled water to make it easier to incorporate into the soap. You couldcertainly use more honey, but would have to be careful about it overheating.I also added fragrance oil to each portion too (I usually add fragranceoil at the very end to try to avoid any acceleration issues).

Here, I am doing an in-the-pot swirl. It’s really hardto pour soap with one hand and take a picture with the other! I don’t tend toswirl too much at this point, because it will naturally swirl as you pour itinto the mold.

Filling the mold; it’s hard to see in the picture, but thereis a really light contrast in the colors, and gravity is helping the swirlingprocess along just fine.

This is the way I do my tops right now. It’s hard toexplain, but I use the back of a spoon to push back some soap along each side to create ripples.

Next, I will start to pile up some soap down the centre, butfirst I have to wait for it to thicken up, it’s too thin yet. If I tried topile the soap onto itself at this point, it will just spread and not hold ashape.

This is just a few minutes later, you can see the soap isstarting to thicken up a bit. It’s able to hold a soft shape, but I would likeit to be a thicker yet.

I cheated and stickblended it a tiny bit more to get it tothe consistency I like for this step, which is like a thick pudding. Now I canstart to mound the soap up down the center.

First, I spoon some soap in a single layer down the centre.I don’t try to pile it up yet, just work a layer at a time.

Now, I start to build the centre onto itself. This is the secondlayer down the centre.

Final layer of soap down the centre. I try tostagger each layer of soap, so that the mounds are offset as they pile up oneach other.

That’s it! I had to resist the urge to sprinkle glitter downthe middle. I love glitter on soap! Next time I might add silk to this batch, and I'm going to try increasing the honey up to 1 tbsp, and also increase the avocado oil.

Now to finish, place the soap into the freezer for 2 hoursto prevent gelling; then transfer to the fridge overnight. Preventing gel will helpkeep the honey from overheating and crystallizing, which could cause orangespeckles in your soap (ask me how I know!)

Luxury Soap Recipe:

Oils & Butters:

12 oz Olive Oil

6.5 oz Coconut Oil

6.5 oz Palm Oil

2.5 oz Avocado Oil

2 oz Mango Butter

2 oz Shea Butter

1 oz Castor Oil

1 oz Sweet AlmondOil

1 oz Jojoba Oil

Lye Solution:

8 oz Frozen GoatMilk

3 oz Frozen RawAlmond Milk (see recipe below)

4.63 oz Lye

0.45 oz Sodium Lactate (optional)

Additives:

1 tsp Honey

1 tsp Chamomile Extract

Super pearly white mica, dissolved in a little bit of sweetalmond oil

Fragrance oil

Almond Milk Recipe: Measure 3 cups of distilled water and 1cup of almonds into a large jar or bowl. Soak for 24 hours in the refrigerator.Pour water and almonds into blender and blend until smooth. Strain throughcheesecloth.