How to Add Essential Oils While Making Soap

Add essential oils and colors for unique homemade soaps.

Essential oils give soothing scents to homemade soaps. The oils may change the consistency and chemical reactivity of the preset soap mixture unless the soap maker very carefully adds them at the proper time in the soap-making process. Soap Making Essentials recommends three to four teaspoons of essential oils per pound of base oil. More essential oils creates a stronger scent, while less essential oils creates a more subtle scent. Mix your very own scent by combining essential oils or add just one essential oil for a classic scented soap.

Things You'll Need

• Spray bottle
• Vinegar
• Rubber gloves
• Eye goggles
• Soap mold
• Wax paper or spray oil
• Lye
• Distilled water
• Wooden spoon
• 2 glass jars
• 2 glass thermometers
• Scale
• Plastic bowl
• 16.2 oz. olive oil
• 21.1 oz. rice bran oil
• 15.5 oz. coconut oil
• Rubber spatula
• Pot
• Stick blender
• Essential oils

Instructions

Preparation

1. Pour two cups of vinegar into a spray bottle and set aside. This is for emergency lye accidents. Lye is extremely alkaline and very dangerous to skin. The acidity of vinegar neutralizes this alkalinity.

2. Put on rubber gloves and safety goggles and wear a long-sleeved shirt and pants.

3. Prepare the soap mold by lining it with wax paper if it is a wooden mold, or coating it with spray oil if it is a plastic mold.

Make Soap Mixture and Add Essential Oils

1. Measure 19 fluid ounces of distilled water in a glass jar and weigh 8.1 ounces of lye crystals. Slowly pour the lye into the water and stir gently with a wooden spoon. The mixture will get hot. Place a thermometer inside the lye mixture and set aside to cool. Place the used spoon in an empty sink.

2. Weigh all oils and place in a pot dedicated to soap-making. Melt on low-medium heat on the stove, stirring occasionally, until the solid oils melt thoroughly and a thermometer placed inside the mixture reads 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius). Maintain this temperature while waiting for the lye to cool.

3. Pour the lye mixture slowly into the pot when it cools to 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius).

4. Stir the mixture a few times with a stick blender and blend with the blades and air holes completely submerged until ripples form in the soap and remain standing.

5. Stop blending and gently stir in essential oils. Immediately pour the mixture into the mold. Cover the mold with wax paper and let sit for four days.

References

• Birch Bark Soap: Cold-Process Soap-Making Tutorial
• Soap Making Essentials: Essential Oils for Soap Making