This is the start of a three-part series in which we will take a look at the soap making process we go through here at Botanie Soap. Whether you are getting ready to try your hand at soap making or you are just interested in what goes into making our organic soap bars, hopefully this inside look at our process will either prepare you, educate you, or both!
1. Oatmeal Spice Ingredients
2. Making and Pouring in to Molds
3. Cutting and Curing
During this series we are going to be following the creation of one our favorite bars here at Botanie Soap, Oatmeal Spice. In part one of this series, I will give you a description of each ingredient that goes into Botanie Soap’s Organic Oatmeal Spice Soap Bar (sodium hydroxide is also a required ingredient but I will not be talking about it here as its use in the soap making process is pretty straight forward).
Oatmeal Spice Soap Ingredients: 1) safflower/sunflower, palm, coconut, 2) oats and cloves,
3) clove bud and cassia essential oil, 4) rosemary extract
1. Organic Base Oil Blend
Organic Sunflower/Safflower – With fatty acid levels very similar to those of olive oil, our sunflower/safflower blend is high in oleic fatty acids. These are the fatty acids which provide the wonderful conditioning properties you find in cold process soap. Both oils make the bar moisturizing by allowing the soap to leave behind its emollient content, which helps the skin retain moisture.
Organic Palm Fruit Oil – A long-lasting bar is important, and this is where palm oil comes in. At proper levels, it provides a nice bar hardness which allows the soap to last rather than get soft after only a few uses. Palm oil also contributes its own conditioning properties and provides a nice, creamy lather.
Organic Coconut Oil – What is the main purpose of soap? To clean, of course. This cleaning property is exactly what coconut oil provides. It is the cleansing coconut oil that grabs all those bad oils on skin, which, in turn, get washed away during rinsing. Along with cleansing the skin, coconut oil provides a bubbly lather. So, with the palm and coconut combination, a nice lather, which is both bubbly and creamy, is created.
2. Organic Clove Powder and Organic Oats
To achieve both the color and the exfoliating properties of our Oatmeal Spice bar, we first use organic clove powder. The clove powder not only gives the bars their nice, light brown color, but it also contributes a mild spice scent. We then add in both ground and whole organic oats, which provide a lovely exfoliating characteristic.
3. Clove Bud And Cassia Essential Oils
What makes our Oatmeal Spice bar smell so much like a cookie waiting to be eaten? That would be a perfect blend of clove bud essential oil and cassia (cinnamon) essential oil. We never use fragrance oils in any of our soaps, as they are synthetics and can be damaging to skin.
4. Rosemary Extract
It’s never good to have a bar of soap go bad. That is where rosemary extract comes in to play. It is a natural preservative that boosts the shelf life of bar soap, allowing each bar to last until somebody is ready to use it.
Combined in the right amounts, the above ingredients create a wonderful Oatmeal Spice bar that is durable and long-lasting, moisturizing, and cleansing. One that looks and smells great, too!
If you have found a special ingredient for your soap recipe that provides extra beneficial properties, please feel free to mention it and how it helps your skin in the comments section.
Hi Ernest,
We do not have any soap making videos at this time but we are hoping to put some together in the future. We do, however, have a great guide with plenty of images that shows the soap making process of one of our soap making kits (very similar to our process just scaled down) which you can find HERE.
You use to have videos of soap making. Do u still have them?