Shea butter is an excellent ingredient for homemade soap. With 60% shea butter, this soap is gentle enough for dry, sensitive skin!
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Why you'll love this soap
- It's very nourishing and will leave your skin refreshed and soft
- It has a creamy, lotion-like lather that's not drying (see lather test below)
- It is very gentle on the skin without stripping it of its natural oils
- It contains a lot of beneficial "unsaponifiables" - molecules that aren't fatty acids and, therefore, will survive the soap-making process. Shea butter contains lots of them!
- It's simple and even beginners can make it
How to Make Shea Butter Soap
From-scratch-soap-making requires the use of lye, which is a caustic substance that can cause injury if not handled properly. Don't be intimidated; simply follow these general rules:
- Never ingest lye or lye solution, avoid contact with eyes and skin, and keep it away from others
- Always wear gloves, goggles and long sleeves while soap-making
- Make sure no kids or pets are around while you make soap
- Avoid inhaling fumes coming from the lye solution when mixing
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, I will earn a commission at no additional cost to you if you decide to make a purchase.
Equipment
- goggles, silicone or rubber gloves, and long sleeves
- silicone soap mold
- immersion blender/stick blender
- digital scale
- 2 medium-sized plastic containers (no glass, no aluminum)
- small plastic spoon
- silicone spatula
Recipe
Makes 1 lb (454g) of soap; superfatted at 5% with a lye concentration of 38%.
Lye Solution:
- Water (distilled or filtered): 3 oz (85g)
- Lye (Sodium Hydroxide): 1.6 oz (45g)
Hard Oils:
- Shea Butter: 7 oz (200g) - prefer refined; you can read why later in the post
- Coconut Oil: 3 oz (85g)
Soft Oils:
- Olive Oil: 1 oz (30g)
- Castor Oil: 1 oz (30g)
Essential Oils:
- 10 -14 g lavender essential oil of choice (optional, you can leave your soap unscented)
Instructions
- Gear up for safety! Put on gloves and goggles, wear long sleeves
- Place mold on a cutting board - for easy transfer later
- Weigh lye into a small plastic cup - always use a scale. It's super important that you measure all your ingredients by weight, not by volume.
- Add water to a separate container
- Create a lye solution by adding lye to the water. Stir until fully dissolved. Set aside to cool.
- Melt shea butter and coconut oil over low heat in a water bath or on short bursts in the microwave
- Add olive, castor oil, and essential oil (if using) to melted fats
- Let cool - fats and lye solution should be slightly above room temperature (not hot!)
- Pour the lye solution into the oils - be careful not to splash or spill
- Stick blend until soap batter is opaque-looking without oil floating on top and at medium trace (light pudding consistency)
- Pour the soap mixture into the mold
- Let rest and set up at room temperature
- Unmold after 48 hours
- Let soap cure for 4-6 weeks
- Store in an empty shoebox away from heat and humidity for up to 12 months
The Lather Test
After 3 weeks of curing, I was amazed at how nicely this soap lathered. It felt rich and creamy, and the bubbles were small but lasted for a considerable time. My winter-battered hands felt nourished after washing and not dried out.
I've made 100% butter soap in the past, which is also very lovely but lathers up pretty slimy. That's why I wanted to use small amounts of coconut and castor oil this time.
Refined vs. Unrefined Shea Butter
When I took my soap formulating class with Kenna Cote, she explained that she prefers refined shea butter. She went on to say that the chance of having impurities is lower that way.
This is a picture of a sample batch I made 4 weeks ago using 25% shea butter in the formula. The left is unrefined; the right is refined. You might see a slight difference in tone; interestingly, the refined soap is also covered in soda ash, but I'm not sure if it's due to the kind of shea butter used.
However, my biggest takeaway is that the characteristic smell of shea butter does come through with the unrefined version.
Leave a comment and share what kind of shea butter you prefer and whether you've noticed any difference. I'd be interested to know!
Looking for more gentle soap recipes? Try:
Until next Time. Happy Tinkering!
Iryth says
I'd like to make a larger batch and want to enter the info into soap calc. What water percentage and super fat should be entered?
Thank you!!
Celine Logan says
HI Lryth, its a superfat of 5% and a lye concentration of 38%. Thank you for asking I've added it to the recipe.