cold process soap

A scrubby bar of soap made with strong brewed espresso, coffee grounds and bright peppermint essential oil. A soap recipe not just for coffee lovers.

You know what’s a life saver for new moms? (Hint: not a baby gadget.) It’s the Starbucks drive thru!!! Seriously though: you’re stuck in the house with your little nugget, it’s the dead of winter, flu season, you’re craving a latte and some sort of human interaction- the drive thru it is.

So here it is: my peppermint mocha inspired soap loaded with caffeine, skin loving butters and uplifting essential oil.

It’s great to use in the shower as a body scrub, but also very effective as a kitchen soap to eliminate odors (onion, garlic, fish) from your hands.

How to Add Coffee to Your Soap

The process of adding coffee products to cold process soap is pretty straight forward. You have several options here:

1. Replace water with brewed coffee in your lye solution: For that I like to freeze the coffee first and then add the lye. You don’t have to do the extra step. I like to do it because the coffee lye solution becomes VERY hot otherwise and takes a long time to cool back down
2. Replace some of the water content: Here you would mix your lye solution like you normally would with distilled water, except with a steep water discount. The coffee is then added straight to your oils.
3. Add used dry coffee grounds at trace. Fresh coffee grounds tend to bleed color into your soap and sometimes you might see a white halo effect around each grain. I recommend using brewed dry coffee grounds as they tend to be a little less scrubby too.

Can I Gel the Soap?

Absolutely, but your soap will turn out darker than mine. You can gel your soap using the cold process oven process (CPOP) method. To do that you would preheat your oven to 170 degrees F, place your soap mold on a wooden cutting board and put your soap in the oven, turn the oven off and leave the soap in there for a couple of hours.

Will the Coffee Scent Stick Around?

That depends on how strong your coffee is. I used a very strong espresso and I notice a coffee scent. It won’t be as strong as with a fragrance oil, but it’s there. Paired with the peppermint essential oil it’s amazing 😉

Let’s make some soap, shall we?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning I will earn a commission if you click through and decide to make a purchase.

If you’ve never made cold process soap, I suggest you read my articles about lye safety, equipment needed and my beginner’s tutorial first.

What you’ll need:

• Goggles and gloves
• Immersion blender
• Digital kitchen scale
• 2 Medium sized containers (not glass)
• Small plastic spoon
• Single cavity soap mold
• Whisk

Ingredients (makes 6 regular sized soap bars / ~ 29 oz / 815 g of soap)

This recipe uses a lye concentration of 38% and is superfatted at 5 %

• Espresso or strong brewed coffee: 7 oz / 200 g
• Lye: 2.52 oz / 71 g
• Avocado Oil (30%): 5.56 oz / 158 g
• Coconut Oil (23%): 4.26 oz / 121 g
• Shea Butter (20%): 3.70 oz / 105 g
• Rice Bran Oil (12%): 2.22 oz / 63 g
• Cocoa Butter (8%): 1.48 oz / 42 g
• Castor Oil (7%): 1.30 oz / 37 g
• Peppermint Essential Oil: 18 g
• Used Coffee Grounds: 2 tsp
• Whole Coffee Beans (optional): a hand full

Instructions:

1. Brew espresso / coffee and save the coffee grounds for later
2. Measure and freeze espresso in an ice cube tray (optional, see text above)
3. Gear up for safety! Put on gloves and goggles
4. Create your lye solution by adding lye to (frozen) espresso and stir until fully dissolved and liquid
5. Melt coconut oil, shea butter and cocoa butter over low heat in a water bath or on short bursts in the microwave
6. Add avocado oil, rice bran oil and castor oil
7. Add essential oil
8. Slowly and carefully pour lye solution into the oils
9. Stick blend until medium trace (light pudding consistency) is achieved
10. Mix in coffee grounds using a whisk
11. Place soap mold on a cutting board
12. Pour soap batter into soap mold and mount the batter a little on top of each bar
13. Texture the tops by using the back of a small spoon
14. Decorate each bar by placing whole coffee beans along the middle
15. Place soaps in the freezer overnight
16. Unmold after 24 hours
17. Cure for 3-4 weeks
18. Enjoy!

Looking for more natural soap recipes? Why not try:

• Banana & Cream Soap
• Papaya & Turmeric Soap
• Lemongrass Calendula Soap

Until next time. Happy Tinkering!

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