lemongrass essential oil Archives

French Green Clay & Milk Soap Tutorial

December 11, 2017 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

French green clay is a popular additive in beauty products. It has a fine texture and light green color that comes from decomposed plant matter and iron oxides. It’s known for its fantastic oil absorbing properties. In this French Green Clay & Milk Soap, the clay adds a subtle color and skin-loving properties.

Rather than water, this recipe uses raw unpasteurized cow milk. You can also use pasteurized in this recipe – we just happened to have raw unpasteurized cow milk on hand. If you’ve never made milk soap, there are a few extra precautions to keep in mind. The lye can scorch the milk if it gets too hot, which can produce a dark color and unpleasant smell. Learn more about how to add lye to milk here.

This soap can be used on the face. It’s best suited for combination to oily skin. Learn more about which clay is right for your skin here. The recipe is made with a refreshing blend of lemongrass essential oil and tea tree essential oil. If you’re planning on using this as a facial soap and you have sensitive skin, you may consider removing the essential oil or using a lighter usage rate. [Read more…]

How to Make Refreshing Lemongrass Soap

July 21, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

This Refreshing Lemongrass Soap was created from the Natural Soap Kit for Beginners. It’s a project that’s specifically designed for beginners, but is perfect for the advanced soaper as well. It’s made with natural lemongrass essential oil, and gets its vibrant color from Green Chrome Oxide Pigment. Poppy seeds are added on top for texture and interest. If you’d like to create a scrubby bar, you could add the poppy seeds at trace!

The Natural Soap Kit for Beginners includes everything you need to create this soap. All you need to provide is distilled water, a mixing bowl, stick blender and thermometer. In addition to the ingredients, the kit includes cute labels and a printed booklet with instructions and cold process soap information. Another bonus? The kit ships free to the lower 48 United States!

In the video above, you can see just how easy it is to make this project. If working with lye makes you a little nervous, knowledge is power! This Lye Safety Guide will teach you everything you need to know about handling lye safely. If you’re a visual learner, watch this video to learn how to handle it safely.

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Natural Colorant Rainbow Cold Process Soap

February 25, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Vivid hues can be achieved with all natural colorants. In fact, you can create just about every color in the rainbow! For this Natural Rainbow Cold Process Soap, I used six colorants in the Natural Colorants Sampler Pack to create layers of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. This soap is fragranced with a combination of lime and lemongrass essential oil for a scent that’s as bright as the layers.

For this project, I added the majority of the colorants directly to the soap batter. The one exception was annatto seed. I made an infusion with the seeds and used the infused oils to create the orange and yellow hues. To help the colors really pop, I recommend soaping at slightly higher temperatures (around 120-130° F) to help the soap go through a complete gel phase. I also recommend insulating the soap, and placing it on a heating pad if your room temperature is on the cooler side. Gel phase really helps natural colors pop! Click here to read more about gel phase, and when to insulate your soap.

The drawback of natural colorants is they do tend to fade with time. These photos were taken about one week after cutting. The colors have faded slightly since then, but are still quite vivid. To help prevent the colors from fading, be sure to keep your bars out of direct sunlight. If you’ve never used natural colorants before, check out the Sunday Night Spotlight on natural colorants here. My new book, Pure Soapmaking, is also full of information on natural colorants, including how to infuse them and what they look like after they fade.

UPDATE 7/6/2016: Below is a photo of the soap about 5 months after unmolding. As you can see, some of the colors have faded slightly. Specifically, the green shade has faded the most. This soap was stored in a dry, cool and dark place. Most of the colors still look quite vivid!

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Brine and Rose Clay Cold Process Soap (Soleseife Soap)

February 11, 2016 Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

A typical cold process salt bar involves adding salt crystals at trace. These are wonderful bars, but they tend to be crumbly and may not last as long, as the salt dissolves with use. Soleseife (or brine soap) is the German name for soap made with salt water. Brine soap is a fantastic alternative to the standard salt bar. The salt is dissolved into the lye water leaving a smooth-textured, creamy white, extremely hard bar of soap. Salt does decrease lather – but this can be counteracted with a high percentage of coconut oil in your recipe. Just be sure to use a high superfat so it does not become drying.

This recipe was actually the inspiration behind the Lavender and Rose Pink Salt Bars. Using a similar design of an in-the-pot swirl with rose clay, these bars look similar but feel drastically different. It’s amazing how using salt water rather than adding salt at trace changes the look and feel. If you’re looking for a small amount of exfoliation, I would recommend adding salt at trace like in the Lavender and Rose Pink Salt Bars. If you like a smooth feel, brine soap is the way to go. Both techniques produce an extremely creamy lather.
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Natural Soap Scum Cleaner Tutorial

January 26, 2016 Filed Under: Home Crafts

Isn’t it amazing how fast your bathroom gets dirty? Between shower scum and sink stains, grime can really pile up. This is especially true with messy kids! Luckily there are powerful household cleaners like baking soda and pumice to fight dirt and make your bathroom shine. This dry soap scum cleaner is made with ingredients from natural sources instead of the harsh chemicals found in store bought cleaners.

This recipe is made with exfoliating ingredients like baking soda, pumice and Epsom salt to easily scrub away tough shower scum. The baking soda and salt also have deodorizing properties to absorb any unpleasant smells in the shower, while lemongrass essential oil and fir needle essential oil leave the tub smelling fresh. Fir needle essential oil helps clean bathroom surfaces as well. To use the cleaner, sprinkle the mixture on a damp surface, concentrating on any areas with built up scum. Then, scrub using a sponge. Rinse away with water.

Like all cleaning products, be sure to keep this product away from children and pets. Before using the scrub, test it on a hidden area in your shower or sink to see if it scratches the surface. The scrub may be a bit too harsh for certain finishes. In addition, you can download and print these free Natural Cleaning Labels to give your products a professional look.

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How to Use and Thicken Liquid Soap Base

January 20, 2016 Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

Making liquid soap from scratch involves several stages. It requires multiple hours of cooking and diluting. If you’re interested in making your own liquid soap, I would recommend checking out the Liquid Soap Guru Kit, which includes instructions and ingredients to make liquid soap. Another option is to use a premade liquid soap base or concentrated paste. Bramble Berry carries several different varieties, see them all here. Liquid soap bases cut down significantly on time, while still allowing you to create and customize a high quality liquid soap product.

One of the important characteristics of liquid soap is the texture. Liquid soap can range from very thin to a thick gel consistency. It’s important to remember that thickness does not mean concentration or quality. There is no right or wrong consistency, it’s all about personal preference. But, the texture of liquid soap does affect packaging options, and may affect how the product is used. For example, soap that has a thin or medium consistency works well in bottles with a pump top. Soap that is too thick may not work well in pump tops, but instead are better suited for disk caps.

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Pretty in Pink: Salty Cold Process

September 1, 2011 Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

Why put Pink Himalayan Salt in your CP? The obvious answer is that it looks totally unique. What you may not know is that Pink Himalayan Salt is known for its nourishing and soothing properties. I love it inside cold process for its exfoliating and moisturizing abilities. Plus salt bars have a very creamy lather. For this project, we just added a little of the coarse sized salt on top for the WOW factor!

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