Shea Butter Soap Recipe

Here's a lovely soap recipe that incorporates shea butter for it's creamy lathering abilities and essential oils of lime, sweet orange, oakmoss, patchouli and clove to create a lightly masculine/unisex scented bar.

The deep turquoise and moss green checker-board pattern is created using sticks of moss green soap coloured with chromium green oxide that have been stacked like 'Lincoln Logs' and placed into the soap mould.

The soap base, coloured with ultramarine blue and hydrated chromium green oxide, has then been poured over top of the 'logs' until the soap mould is filled. When cut, this creates an interesting checker-board like pattern.

Note that the base colour is influence by the essential oils used in the scent blend, particularly the oakmoss and patchouli . Normally the colour would be a much lighter turquoise.

Shea Butter Soap Recipe Ingredients

Shea Butter  -  90 gr.  |  3.18 oz.  |  10%

Coconut Oil  -  270 gr.  |  9.52 oz.  |  30%

Olive Oil  -  360 gr.  |  12.7 oz.  |  40%

Palm Oil**  -  180 gr.  |  6.35 oz.  |  20%

Distilled Water  -  326.07 gr.  |  11.5 oz.  

Lye  -  124.451 gr.  |  4.39 oz.  

Water as % of Oils = 36.23

Super Fat/Discount = 8%

Optional Additives

Lime E/O  -  6 tsp. (30 ml)

Sweet Orange E/O  -  1 tsp. (5 ml)

Oakmoss E/O  -  1/2 tsp. (2.5 ml)

Patchouli E/O  -  1/2 tsp. (2.5 ml)

Clove E/O  -  1/4 tsp. (1.25 ml)

Ultramarine Blue  -  1/2 tsp. (2.5 ml)

Hydrated Chromium Green Oxide  -  1/2 tsp. (2.5 ml)

Cut Soap Strips  -  300 grams

**You can easily make this recipe Palm Free, by switching out the palm oil for lard, tallow, shea butter, cocoa butter or mango butter.

Just remember to run the recipe through a lye calculator first to get the proper amount of lye needed. 

Shea Butter Soap Recipe Instructions

Step One

Review the tutorial on making Checker-Board Soap and prepare your soap mould as instructed using the coloured soap strips. 

Step Two

Follow the instructions for either cold process or room temperature soap making found on the 'How to make soap' page. Then incorporate the following steps. 

Mix your soap colourants together with a small amount of olive oil and remove all lumps. Once your soap reaches a thin trace add the colour to the soap base and blend well.

At a medium trace add in the scent blend and mix. Work quickly as the mix may set up quickly at this point.

Pour the soap base gently over the soap strips in the soap mould taking care to not disturb the pattern. You can nudge any wayward strips back into place with a bamboo skewer if needed.

Gently tap the soap mould on the table to remove any air bubbles that may have become trapped.

Insulate the soap as you usually would. 

Cut the soap once it is firm enough to handle. Be sure to cut across the strips if you want to maintain the checker-board pattern.

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