Mango Butter Soap Recipe

A nourishing mango butter soap recipe enriched with lots of shea butter, coconut milk and an exotic blend of essential oils. Such a delight!

What I love about making your own soaps is that you get to choose exactly what natural ingredients you want to use to create the perfect recipe. This cold-process soap recipe is filled with high-quality, nourishing oils and butters. It's gentle enough for sensitive skin and makes a great hand soap.

For this recipe I've used apricot kernel oil as a soft nourishing oil, shea and mango butter as moisturizing hard butters, coconut and castor oil for great bubble power and coconut milk powder for creamy lather. Rounded out with an exotic blend of lemongrass and patchouli essential oils. I love how these soap bars turned out, so moisturizing and creamy!

Benefits of Mango Butter in Homemade Soaps

Mango butter is produced by extracting the fat of the mango seed and cold pressing it into butter. At room temperature, mango butter is semi-solid and melts upon skin contact. It absorbs into the skin super-fast, which is why I love to use it for homemade body butters.

Mango butter is largely made up of oleic acid and stearic acid. Which give conditioning properties and hardness to a bar of soap. Mango butter is one of the softest butters. That's why it's typically combined with other hard oils like coconut, palm oil and tallow or another hard butter like shea or cocoa butter to produce a hard bar of soap.

Mango butter comes in refined and unrefined versions. In both cases, the fruity scent of mangoes does not come through in the finished soap. If you really want soap that smells of mango, you'd have to use a fragrance oil.

Soap Making Safety Precautions

Sodium Hydroxide Lye is a caustic or alkali substance (high PH). It can potentially burn your skin, damage your eyes or cause serious injury when ingested. I've written an in depth post about lye safety, which you should definitely read if this is your first soap making experience.

Here's a quick reminder, however, about the most important things to keep in mind when working with lye:

1. Soap in a well-ventilated area (crack a window or turn on a fan)
2. Don't soap around kids or pets
3. ALWAYS wear gloves, safety glasses and protective clothing for the entire time you're making soap,
4. Always pour lye into water. Never the other way around!
5. When lye is first combined with a liquid, fumes are released that shouldn’t be inhaled (you might choose to wear a face mask, hold your breath, or turn your head to the side to breathe for that time)
6. Keep in mind that the lye water solution will initially become very hot
7. Never leave your lye solution unattended in a place where kids or pets can get to

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning at no additional cost to you will I earn a commission if you decide to click through and make a purchase.

Equipment

• gloves and safety glasses, face mask (optional)
• sharp knife (for cutting mango butter into chunks)
• stick blender (which stick blender is best for soap making? Read here)
• digital scale
• candy thermometer or infrared thermometer
• 1 medium sized container (plastic or stainless steel, make sure it holds 4 cup)
• one small container (for mixing lye solution)
• one small cup (for measuring the lye)
• one small glass jar (for measuring essential oils)
• spatula (plastic or silicone)
• plastic spoon
• soap mold
• cutting board that fits soap mold

Ingredients (makes 6 Bars of Soap or 20 oz/ 570 g of finished soap)

This recipe is superfatted at 7% and uses a lye concentration of 38% (if you want to understand water discount better, I recommend you read this post)

• distilled water: 4.4 oz / 124 g
• sodium hydroxide lye: 2.7 oz / 76 g
• coconut oil (30% of total oils): 5.8 oz / 165 g
• apricot kernel oil (27%): 5.3 oz / 150 g
• shea butter (23%): 4.5 oz / 127 g
• mango butter (15%): 3 oz / 83 g
• castor oil (5%): 1 oz / 28 g
• lemongrass essential oil: 9 g
• patchouli essential oil: 9 g
• coconut milk (powdered): 4 tsp
• yellow oxide (optional for color): ½ tsp

Prep work

1. prepare your work area: cover your work surface with old newspaper or freezer paper
2. gather all your equipment
3. make sure all your equipment is clean

Safety first

1. put on your gloves and goggles, make sure you’re wearing long sleeves
2. ensure that you’ll be undisturbed for the next 30 min
3. crack a window

Preparing Lye Solution

1. in a small container measure out the distilled water
2. in a small plastic cup measure out lye
3. slowly while constantly stirring pour the lye into the water. Work swiftly and don't inhale the fumes. Set lye solution to the side when it is completely dissolved.

Preparing Oil Mixture

1. In a medium pot or microwave proof container measure out coconut oil, shea butter and mango butter
2. melt over low heat in a water bath or on 20 second bursts in the microwave until fully liquid
3. add apricot kernel oil and castor oil
4. measure out essential oils and add
5. add coconut milk powder and yellow oxide (if using)
6. before adding lye water solution blend oil mixture with stick blender thoroughly until well incorporated and there are no more clumps

Combining Oil and Lye

1. place mold on cutting board
2. slowly pour the lye solution down the shaft of your stick blender. This will reduce any air bubbles being trapped in your soap. Gently tap your stick blender to further release any air.
3. turn on your stick blender on low, blend for 15 seconds and stir with spatula while checking consistency of batter. We’re aiming for a pudding consistency (see picture below).
4. once you see the soap batter leaving traces on top of the surface, you’re done stick blending
5. pour soap batter into mold not quite to the top
6. tap mold with cutting board on countertop (to release air bubbles and even out batter)
7. texture top of soap with small spoon (optional)
8. leave in mold in safe spot for 48 hours
9. unmold by pulling on all sides first and then pressing from the bottom
10. cure for 3-4 weeks
11. then store in cool place away from humidity and sunlight

Until next time. Happy Tinkering!