If you didn’t get to take a tropical vacation this summer, making this Hawaiian shirt-themed soap might be the next best thing. Big, bright flowers of color give this soap a special pop, and it’s scented with our brand new Shave and a Haircut Fragrance Oil, which was a favorite of our 2013 S.O.A.P. Panel. The powdered coconut milk in this recipe gives the finished soap a thick, conditioning lather, and the milk won’t discolor in the final product. Surf’s up!
What You’ll Need:
16 oz. Coconut Oil
16 oz. Olive Oil
16 oz. Palm Oil
16 oz. Canola Oil
12 oz. Sweet Almond Oil
4 oz. Hemp seed Oil
10.9 oz. Sodium Hydroxide
26.4 oz. distilled water
4.9 oz. Shave and a Haircut Fragrance Oil
18 Bar Unfinished Birchwood Mold with Silicone Liner
1 oz. Coconut Milk Powder
Click here to add everything you need for this project to your Bramble Berry shopping cart! And remember, you can always remove anything you don’t need. If you want to use one of Bramble Berry’s Quick Mix oils instead of doing a recipe from scratch, I’d go with the Swirl Mix.
If you’ve never made Cold Process soap before, stop here! I highly recommend checking out our FREE four part SoapQueen.tv series on Cold Process Soapmaking, especially the episode on lye safety. And if you’d rather do some reading, Bramble Berry carries a wide range of books on the topic, including my newest book, Soap Crafting. You can also checkout the digital downloads for that instant gratification factor.
COLOR PREP: Disperse 1 teaspoon of each pigment into 1 tablespoon of Sunflower or Sweet Almond Oil. Be careful to saturate all the colorant under the oil before mixing or you’ll end up with a messy poof of color. Use a mini mixer to disperse clumps of colorant.
ADDITIVE PREP: Mix 1 oz. Powdered Coconut Milk in 2 oz. of distilled water. Saturate the powder with water before using a mini mixer to blend the two together.
SAFETY FIRST: Suit up for safe handling practices! That means goggles, gloves and long sleeves. Make sure kids, pets, and other distractions and tripping hazards are out of the house or don’t have access to your soaping space. Always soap in a well-ventilated area.
ONE: Slowly and carefully add the lye to the water, and stir until clear. Set aside to cool. If you’d like a harder bar of soap that releases more quickly from the mold, you can add Sodium Lactate to the cooled lye water. Use 1 teaspoon of Sodium Lactate per pound of oils in the recipe.
TWO: Melt and combine the Coconut, Palm, Olive, Canola, Hempseed and Sweet Almond oils in a large glass container. Once the lye water and the oils have cooled to 130 degrees or below (and are ideally within 10 degrees of each other), add the lye water to the oils and stick blend until thin trace.
THREE: Using a whisk or spatula, mix in the powdered coconut milk.
FOUR: Fill five 12 oz. condiment bottles halfway full (about 6 oz.) with soap batter.
FIVE: In the remaining batter, whisk in the entire container of fragrance oil.
SIX: Split the large batch of soap batter again, this time into two separate containers. Fill each container with approximately 2.5 cups of soap batter, and add 1/2 teaspoon of Ultraviolet Blue to one, 1 teaspoon of Fizzy Lemonade to another and 1 teaspoon of Titanium Dioxide to the third.
SEVEN: Add one color per condiment bottle. We added 1 teaspoon of Fired Up Fuchsia, Tangerine Wow and Titanium Dioxide to three separate bottles. Add 1/2 teaspoon Ultraviolet Blue to the fourth bottle and 1.5 teaspoons Fizzy Lemonade to the last bottle. Cover the tip of the bottle and shake vigorously to disperse the colorants. Release your finger with the tip pointing away from your face. A little bit of soap always comes out the top and that’s the last thing you want on your skin.
EIGHT: To create the in-the-pot swirl in the base of the soap, start by pouring the yellow colored soap into the white soap in 4 places: 12:00 o’clock, 4:00 o’clock, 8:00 o’clock, and center. Pour from a high point so the soap penetrates the entire depth of the soap in the pot, which will create a swirl throughout the mixture. Use the same technique when pouring the blue soap. To complete the swirl, use a spatula, chopstick or dowel and swirl the soap by running the tool through the entry points once. It is important to swirl only once because you do not want the colors to completely blend together.
NINE: Pour the freshly swirled soap into the silicone mold. Tamp the mold on the table after you are finished pouring to ensure even coverage and disperse bubbles, but be careful to not over-agitate the swirl.
TEN: Add color by squirting golf ball-sized pools of color on the top of the soap. Layer up to four colors on top of each other to create a “flower” look.
ELEVEN: With a chopstick or dowel, start at the outer edge of the color pools and drag the tool into the center. Do this 4 to 5 around the pools to create the “petals”. Be sure to wipe your tool off between drags. Repeat with all the pools of color in the mold.
TWELVE: Spray the entire top with 91 or 99% Isopropyl Alcohol to reduce soda ash. Cover and insulate for 24 hours and unmold after 3-4 days, and allow to cure for 4-6 weeks and enjoy.
Tip: Highlight the design by cutting the bars horizontally around the flowers. You may not end up with equal-sized bars, but you will have an awesome design!
Bonus video: Want to watch us cut this soap? Check out the Instagram video!
Hi,
I wanted to use goat milk as my base instead of water…is this ok? And instead of coconut milk – goats milk. Thoughts?
Thanks
Hi Missy!
You could certainly use goat milk instead of water if you’d like. I would recommend taking a look at this Soap Queen Tv video on Goat Milk soap for some tips 🙂
Making Goat Milk Soap: http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/cold-process-soap/goat-milk-soap-tutorial-on-soap-queen-tv/
In that case, I would recommend removing the Coconut Powder altogether, since the purpose of it was to create a milky bar of soap, which you will already have because you will be using goat milk! 🙂
-Amanda with Bramble Berry
I love the FO’s name. Lol who ever came up with that name must be related to someone in the military.
So true! We had a military man that worked here while we were coming up with that name =) And, my Dad served too! Glad you like it!
I just watched the video of the Soap Cutting, how cute at the end, she has the Baby in the photo shoot. 🙂
Your Hawaiian Shirts just got even cuter!!
Hi Jody!
We are so glad that you noticed that! Baby Lily has made her cameo in a couple of our short videos and we hope to have her make a few more. Let us know if you end up making this recipe, we’d love to hear your feedback. =)
Happy Soaping!
-Becky with Bramble Berry
Say could you give me a few suggestions for alternate FO? I am not so fond of the shave & a haircut, and it seems to me that you would need one that does not discolor. I am still trying to figure those out, and sometimes what your website says on the FO page is not what happens in the soap pot.
Hi Mary Lou!
There are so many fun fragrance oils you could go with. If you are looking for a non-discoloring fragrance oil, I would check the ones out in this blog post:
What are Water White Fragrance Oils?: http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/tips-and-tricks/what-are-water-white-fragrance-oils/
I would suggest ones like Yuzu, Pink Grapefruit or Ginger Ale to stick with the tropical-type theme of the design. =)
Pink Grapefruit Fragrance Oil: https://www.brambleberry.com/Pink-Grapefruit-Fragrance-Oil-P3913.aspx
Ginger Ale: https://www.brambleberry.com/Ginger-Ale-P4161.aspx
Yuzu Cybilla Fragrance Oil: https://www.brambleberry.com/Yuzu-Cybilla-Fragrance-Oil-P3412.aspx
Happy Soaping!
-Becky with Bramble Berry
The water white fragrance oils was an excellent read – i learned so much. Thanks!
Aw, thanks for letting me know! =)
I am going to make this ASAP! Any suggestions for hemp oil and coconut milk powder? So excited!
I’d put the coconut milk powder in some water and pre-mix it and add it at trace. The Hemp Oil is already in the recipe so just add that with the rest of the oils. Let us know how it turns out!
Oh shoot – I meant as a replacement for hemp and the coconut powder. I have regular milk powder, will that work? Also have avocado, rice bran, sunflower seed, and babbassu oils – think I could use one of these for the hemp? Am thinking of using bamboo for the FO since I haven’t ordered shave and a haircut yet. Let me know if you think that may accelerate trace. I’ll make sure to run any suggestions through the calculator. Thanks so much Anne-Marie! (I’m practicing for the soap club- can’t wait)
Will post my results for sure!
Susan
Hi Susan!
You can use regular milk powder in place of the Coconut Milk Powder. I would also mix it in some water and add it in at trace like Anne-Marie suggest with the Coconut Milk Powder. If you want to substitute out the Hemp Oil, I would suggest using Avocado Oil.
Avocado Oil: https://www.brambleberry.com/Avocado-Oil-P3198.aspx
Make sure to run your recipe through the lye calculator again if you do any oil or butter substitutions! The Fresh Bamboo Fragrance Oil does accelerate trace a bit, so I would suggest another FO if you are wanting to do the fun flowers in this recipe. I hope this helps! Let us know if you have any other questions. =)
Lye Calculator: https://www.brambleberry.com/Pages/Lye-Calculator.aspx
Happy Soaping!
-Becky with Bramble Berry
Thanks Becky, I will check my arsinol of BB fragrances and see what I have!
Well here it is! I used flax oil instead of hemp and regular powdered milk instead of coconut. For fragrance, I split between pink grapefruit and energy. Smells yummy! I’m terrible at waiting for the cut but this time I’m waiting 4 full days….hopefully!
Oh wow! Amazing. You did sooooo good. I like that you did 4 colors for almost all of the flowers. I think the effect is stunning. Nice work!
rice bran or canola oil? your ingredient list has canola, your instructions has rice bran. Can’t wait to try this.
Hi Joanne!
Thanks for the eagle eye, it is actually Canola Oil and not Rice Bran Oil. We’ve fixed up that step and everything is reflecting what is supposed to be in the recipe. =)
-Becky with Bramble Berry
That is so cute!!
Hi Jamie!
Thanks for stopping by and taking a look at this project. We just love this project and hope you get a chance to try it out. =)
-Becky with Bramble Berry
I made something like this for the Aug soap swap. My flowers were all pushed together. I like the look of the Hawaiian Shirt, very cute.
I’ll bet the SHave and Haircut fragrance matches the Tourist Theme, Very cute!
Hi Jody!
I just love your version of this soap, your colors are so bright! What did you end up scenting your soaps with? Thanks for sharing! =)
Happy Soaping!
-Becky with Bramble Berry
They were scented with Grass Stain fragrance. I sprinkled a little cosmetic glitter on top to give them some bling.
I really like the Hawaiian shirt idea
This has been on my ‘to do’ list for quite awhile now. I like the idea of a Hawaiian theme! Although it will wait until this winter as I have started my holiday soaps I appreciate the new idea, as always.
This is one of my favorite soaps to make. 🙂
So that’s how you make those pretty flowers, I was wondering about that. And it’s so much less tacky than a Hawaiian shirt. 😀
Hi Monica!
We hope you get a chance to try out this recipe, and we’d love to see your interpretation of the Hawaiian Shirt Soap! =)
Happy Soaping!
-Becky with Bramble Berry