Making Cold Process Soap with Lavender Essential Oil

Nighttime, it's when I soap.

The littles are asleep. The house is mostly quiet. And it's peaceful.

Tonight, I created a cold process soap using essential oils. And I'm in a generous mood, so I'm sharing my recipe. Please run your own lye calculations though a soap calculator to confirm. 

Oils/Fats:
20 oz beef tallow
18 oz coconut oil
18 oz palm oil
4 oz castor oil

17.51 oz distilled water
8.76 oz sodium hydroxide (lye)

2.25 oz fragrance oil or essential oil

1. Follow all safety precautions for working with lye. At a minimum, that means wearing gloves and goggles and keeping pets and people (especially children) away from the working area. Work in a well ventilated area or open a window while mixing the lye as it emits fumes.
2. Weigh the oils and melt to combine.
3. Weigh the distilled water and place in a suitable container (I use a Pyrex glass batter bowl, but a stainless steel and some plastic containers are acceptable.) Don't use aluminum.
4. Weigh the lye and add it to the distilled water. Stir briefly with a stainless steel spoon or silicone spatula.  Never pour water onto the lye. Remember the expression "it snows on the lake" -- the white lye flakes fall into the water.
5. Wait for the lye water to cool and turn clear. 
6. Add the lye solution to the melted oils.
7. Mix with a stick blender until it looks like thin pudding.
8. Add the fragrance of your choice and stir.
9. Pour into your mold(s).
10. Spray top with 91% rubbing alcohol to prevent the formation of white soda ash on the top. 
11. Next day: remove soap from mold and cut into slices.
12. Place soap on a non-aluminum surface to cure for 3-6 weeks.

Here's a video of the soap I made tonight:

This soap will be available for sale in about a month. (2/15/17)
Click here to go to Nancy's Garden Soap Co on Etsy.