Aromatherapy Soap

There are many simple soap recipes you can try at home, and be happy to get a bar of soap as beautiful as from a real soap shop. The different is surely the price, it’s 60% less!!

Try this simple one:

Crisco Basic Soap

1.5 lbs Crisco (vegetable shortening)
3 oz. lye
6 oz. water (distilled is better)
Colorant
0.6 – 0.8 oz. Choice of Essential Oil

Direction:
1. Melt the Crisco in a stainless steel or enamel pan.
2. Place cold water in a heat proofed glass bowl. Slowly sprinkle the lye while stirring it with a plastic or rubber spoon until clear.
3. Check both temperature of melted Crisco and lye solution. If they are warm to the touch (90 - 110 F) Then pour the lye solution to the melted Crisco slowly while stirring. Keep stirring until you get the trace.
4. Trace is when it thickens to the point where you can drop some of the mix and it leaves a trail. 5. At this point you can add some colorant and scent of your choice for you soap.
6. Pour into molds. You can use special soap mold, plastic box or even other container such as pringles can.
7. Put molds in a warm, insulate place, or you can wrap it with old blanket or towel
8. Let set 24-48 hours and then cut. It makes 6-8 soap bars.
9. Place on to rack; let it cure for 3-4 weeks.

Tips :
1. Lye is extremely caustic and corrosive. Keep it out of reach of the children. Also watch your equipment and the surface where you work with this stuff.
2. Better work in an open or a ventilated area.
3. Use goggle to protect your eyes.
4. Always use rubber or plastic gloves, because the soap is still caustic until it completely cured (about 3 weeks).
5. You can use an electric hand mixer while stirring the mixture; the trace point will be reached faster.
6. The amount of Essential Oil needs in this recipe could be a single kind of EO, or a combination of 2-4 kinds of EO.
7. Harmonize your additive, such as: purple colorant with Lavender EO, pink with Rose EO, etc.