Advanced Soap Recipes

These recipes are more complex than the basic soap recipes, and should only be used if you're comfortable with using different or many ingredients and more advanced techniques.

Wicked Jasmine Soap
From Justine Crane of Sierra Soupourri

Ingredients:
16 oz palm kernal oil
16 oz soybean oil
8 oz coconut oil
8 oz virgin coconut cream oil
6 oz virgin olive oil
6 oz rice bran oil
5 oz castor oil
3/4 oz jasmine wax
1/2 oz tuberose wax
16 oz water ^{[ 1 ]}
9 1/2 oz lye

At trace, add:
1 oz shea butter (super fatting oil)
3/4 oz vanilla infusion oil ^{[ 2 ]}
1/2 oz Indian patchouli essential oil
1/2 oz ylang-ylang essential oil

Prepare a box-type wooden mold by lining with plastic wrap or baker's sheets. Mix lye into water, making sure to stir well as the water reduction can cause the lye to stick to the bottom of the container. Add all of the oils, including the floral waxes and except the shea, in a pot and heat until just melted -- the easiest way to do this is to melt the solid oils first, then add the liquid oils and heat for only a minute before turning off the heat. When both the oil and the lye are at equal temps, around 100-110 F, pour the lye slowly into the oil using a stick blender to mix. Trace should come pretty quickly, within 10 minutes or so; let the soap sit for 5 minutes to make sure there is no separation, then stick blend again for a minute or two. Add the essential oils and infusion, blending well, pour into a prepared wooden mold and oven process by covering the exposed soap with plastic wrap and popping the mold into a 170 F oven for about 30 minutes to an hour until the soap gels completely. Remove the soap from the oven after gel; let sit for 24 hours before removing soap from the mold and cutting the bars. Allow the soap to dry and cure for a day or two. Makes just over 5 lbs of soap.

This is an awesome soap, both in texture and scent. The jasmine wax really pops out and with all the layers of patchouli, rose and ylang in there, it makes a wonderfully exotic smelling soap.

Footnotes:

^{[ 1 ]}: I use a water reduction method, which helps the soap trace more quickly and really helps with shrinkage later on.

^{[ 2 ]}: Sunrose Aromatics sells an awesome vanilla infusion in fractionated coconut oil

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