I have been practicing making perfect soap bars and testing them out. This is another highly addictive hobby second to making your own cosmetic products. If you have been following me, you know that I am a big fan of shea butter, I have been formulating most of my skincare products with it. It is a gentle botanical carrier oil pack with skin-loving fatty acids and antioxidants. According to my research, a 100% shea soap bar will make a very hard bar, that makes sense because it is hard oils, meaning it remains solid at room temperature. And who doesn’t like a hard bar, a soap bar that turns mushy after 3 uses, is definitely not a good soap bar.
Unlike my shea coco hair shampoo bar that is formulated with surfactants, we call this kind of shampoo bar a syndet bar, this 100% Shea Soap Bar is a cold process soap. This means it goes through a full saponification process that involves using NaOH.
Fatty acid profile of 100% Shea Soap bar
This 100% shea soap bar contains 40% of stearic acid. Stearic acid is one of many fatty acids that occur naturally in various plants and animal derivatives. It is a fatty acid with a long hydrocarbon chain. Its role is to harden your bar and also helps your bar of soap retain its shape. So it is not hard to explain that this soap bar has a hardness of 45. [ Check the soap bar quality below ]
But shape is only one of the properties that stearic acid adds to our bar soaps. It is also a powerful cleanser that helps reduce water’s surface tension, allowing it to mix with oils and dirt on the surface of your skin. Because of stearic acid, soap particles are able to attach to the dirt and oil on your skin, loosening them so they can then be washed away with water. Because stearic acid is an important component of stratum corneum lipids, therefore this soap bar is very moisturizing, when you rub it over your wet body, it creates that lotion and creamy liquid to wash away the dirt in a gentle way.
The second major fatty acid in our soap bar is oleic acid. Oleic acid, or omega-9 fatty acid, is a non-essential fatty acid (i.e. ā it is produced by the human body). It can also be found in many animal and vegetable fats. In its natural state, it is colorless and odorless. The fact that our 100% shea soap bar contains a high amount of it, makes our soap bar a very moisturizing soap bar. So we can conclude that this 100% shea soap bar is basically very gentle and moisturizing thanks to stearic and oleic acid, it has a conditioning value of 54. It is therefore perfect for coming up autumn and winter season.
100% Shea Soap Bar Quality
| Soap Bar Quality | Range | My Recipe |
|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 29 – 54 | 45 |
| Cleansing | 12 – 22 | 0 |
| Conditioning | 44 – 69 | 54 |
| Bubbly | 14-46 | 0 |
| Creamy | 16 – 48 | 45 |
| Iodine | 41 – 70 | 59 |
| INS | 136 – 165 | 116 |
- These values are obtained from soap calculator.
DIY Tools
- 3-cup Pyrex Beakers
- Electronic balance
- Silicon spatula
- 4 x 100g Silicon Soap Mold
- Uncontact laser temperature
- Safety Goggles
- Mask
- Gloves
- Apron
I got all my supplies from Amazon, it is the best deal I could ever find for my soaping project.
Related Post: Essential DIY Equipment and Tools for DIY Beauty Crafters
100% Shea Soap Bar
Course: Beauty RecipesDifficulty: advance2
x 100g Bar30
minutes24
hours6
weeksTo create two 100g soap bars, you will need the following ingredients
Ingredients
16.37g NaOH (also called caustic soda/lye) get them here!
51.30g Distilled Water
4g of Essential Oils [ Check the suggestion below ]
Directions
- Wear your gloves, safety glasses, and apron. It is important to practice this each time you make your own soap.
- Weigh 135 unrefined shea butter in the 1L Pyrex beaker, and put in a simmering water bath, stir until the shea butter is totally melted. Remove from heat.
- In the meantime, weigh your water into a 500ml pyrex jar and NaOH into a 250ml Pyrex jar.
- Here’s an important step, slowly pour your NaOH powder into your water. It is an endothermic reaction, it is therefore the mixture will releases heat. To prevent the reaction reacts too fast and aggressive, you should slowly pour in the NaOH powder, stir and mix each time.
- When both pyrex jars slightly cool down, you should feel comfortably warm by putting your hand over the glass jar, about 40 to 50 Celcius degrees (do not put your hands into the mixture!) Transfer the lye water (NaOH & water mixture) into the oil. Stir and mix until total combined.
- If you are using unrefined shea butter, the trace shall reach within minutes, I don’t even need to use my handheld mixer for the saponification process. The thick trace is like a thick batter, it shall look like the photo below. If you are using refined shea butter, you will need the help of a handheld mixer to reach the trace faster.
- Weigh your essential oils into a glass jar (I used the 250ml pyrex beaker, wash it after you weigh the NaOH). Transfer these oils into the thick trace mixture. Stir and mix until total combined.
- Pour them into your mold. Let them cool down and cover with protection. I unmold them about 24 hours later.
- Let it cure for 6 weeks before use.
Notes & Observation
- I used unrefined shea butter, during the saponification process, it reached a thick trace almost immediately. I would say within 5 minutes, it was good for pouring and molding.
- For the lack of scent, you can use refined shea butter. Unrefined shea butter has a smoky nutty aromatic scent and light yellow in color, while refined shea butter is bleached by chemicals, it is, therefore, odorless and white in color.
- You can scent it as you want, for this batch I used 1.5g of Ylang-ylang,1g of Bergamot, 1g of Tea Tree, and 0.5g of Eucalyptus Globulus. This blend overpowered the unrefined shea butter scent.
- For a soaping beginner, I suggest you check out the blog from soap queen to understand more.
- If you can’t wait for my lather test after approximately of 6 weeks of curing, you can check out this blog and this video [this video will also help you to visualize better, how soaping works] to see if it’s how you will like it for your soap bar.
- Maybe I will also make my own videos in the near future, I just need my working space to be more organized and also need better equipment to film.
My 100% Shea soap bar is still undergoing the curing stage, which means I don’t get to use it for at least another 4 ~6 weeks. I will definitely come back to update this entry when it is done. Stay tuned!
Last but not least, if you prefer a gentle, non-foaming cleanser, be sure you check out the following beauty recipes:
- Gentle Facial Cleansing Balm
- Conditioning Lavender Hand Soap ā for a lot of handwashing
- DIY Whitening Tooth Powder
If you like my tutorial, please consider donating me a coffee! Cheers
Calleigh
Hi, I am Calleigh, MEng Chemical Engineering and a process engineer, and I'm here to show you how to DIY your skincare and household products with the correct formulation and using only natural ingredients. I believe that eating good food (Yes I have cooking recipes too!) and living in a chemical-free environment are the keys to having a healthy lifestyle. And that doesn't need to be expensive.
