I’ve already posted about making homemade Shower Soothers. I liked those so much, that I pretty much used them all up in a week. I really love that rosemary, eucalyptus, and lavender combination! And since I liked that combination so much, it seemed like a good idea to try using it in a soap.
Just as before, I didn’t have any soap-specific supplies so my recipe had to use only readily-available oils and ingredients. After checking out what I had in the pantry I played around on Soapcalc until I found a mixture that gave me the properties I wanted. The soap turned out creamy and delightful, with a perfectly invigorating scent. When I started this project, I really thought I had a bottle of dried rosemary in the pantry. I had planned to mix some of that into the soap to make it a little scrubby, but it still turned out great. Here’s the recipe:
Head-clearing Soap
1/4 pound coconut oil
1/4 pound vegetable shortening
1/4 pound canola oil
0.15 pound grapeseed oil
0.10 pound castor oil
172.36 g water
63.11 g lye
20 drops rosemary oil
20 drops eucalyptus oil
20 drops lavender oil
Be very diligent about safety when making soap. Lye is a strong base so you don’t want to touch it, swallow it, or get it in your eyes. Or nose. Or ears for that matter. Okay? Be careful and don’t sue me.
Dissolve the lye in water and set aside. Melt the coconut oil and vegetable shortening over low heat. Add the canola, grapeseed, and castor oils. Once blended, add the lye solution and begin stirring. Your mixture should become cloudy. If you have an immersion blender, you can pulse until light trace. With the blender this should take one or two minutes. If you’re whisking by hand, this may take up to an hour. Once you’ve reached trace, add the essential oils. Blend to combine and then pour into your mold. Let cool overnight.