Energizing Rosemary Eucalyptus Soap

My husband has used the same soap for as long as I have known him. Orange Dial. He loves the scent and everything about it. After I made my lavender rosemary soap, I took on the challenge of creating a more manly bar of soap. Or at least something that didn't smell like flowers. I wanted to go for something energizing with a cool pattern. I think I succeeded. 

I used a pringle can as my mold, and sliced the log into rounds to make my bars. 

I wanted a color in this soap so I took 1 tsp of blue oxide pigment from my DIY makeup stash and mixed it with a tablespoon of oil to dissolve the pigment. It was probably more than I needed so I would do half that amount next time. I will reflect this in the recipe. 

I went to soapcalc.net to create my recipe. You can take any oil you want and type in the percentage you want to use and when all your oils add up to 100% you click 'calculate recipe' and it shows you how much lye, water and oil you need for your recipe. It also gives ranges for things like hardness, cleansing, lather, conditioning, etc. and will show you where your soap is in that range. It is really neat because you can play around with the oil percentages until you get the numbers you want.

For my mold I used a pringles can that I lined with parchment paper. I had to work fast with the rest of the process so I don't have pictures. But, I mixed my oils and lye together and blended until it reached a light trace. Then I added the essential oils. Then I divided the soap in half. Half of it got colored with blue and half remained uncolored. I took the white first and poured for 3 seconds. Then I took the blue and poured for 3 seconds. I alternated back and forth just pouring and aiming for the middle of the pringles can until all the soap was gone. That is what gives it the swirl look. 

Then I wrapped the tube in a towel and set it aside for 24 hours. 

The next day I pulled it out of the can. 

I unwrapped it and sliced it into rounds. 

I think it turned out SO COOL! Chris keeps walking by and commenting that he is excited to use the soap when it is ready in a few weeks. 

Energizing Rosemary Eucalyptus Soap

40% Coconut Oil

40% Tallow

15% Olive Oil

5% Castor Oil

5% superfat (this means the recipe is calculated to have 5% extra fat that won't react with the lye to give a more conditioning soap)

6 g Rosemary essential oil

4 g Eucalyptus essential oil

4 g Sweet Orange essential oil

1/2 tsp of cosmetic ultramarine blue pigment dissolved in 1/2 Tbsp of olive oil

Calculate your recipe using Soapcalc to get your precise amounts of fats, lye and water based on the amount of oils you want to use. I have been using the standard 16 oz by weight of oils. 

After you reach trace, add in your essential oils. Divide the soap in half. Mix half with the blue pigment using your immersion blender. Immediately pour into the center of a lined pringle can and count to three each time, alternating between colors until both containers run out of soap. 

Let saponify for 24 hours for unmolding and slicing into bars. Let cure for 3-6 weeks. 

Enjoy!