Avocado Soap Recipe

May 03, 2023

Avocado oil is great. It's famous for it's uses in hair and skin treatments due to the fact that it is packed with essential fatty acids. However it is also great in cold process soap. Avocado oil brings a lovely conditioning effect to a bar of soap.

We're using cold pressed avocado oil in this recipe. The colour does come through to the finished bar, but the scent isn't noticeable. That's why we're adding three essential oils for scent: Rosemary, lavender and spearmint essential oil.

One of the benefits of making avocado soap is that our avocado oil is sustainable. It is produced from avocado fruit that would otherwise be rejected by the food industry. Not only that, our avocado oil is produced sustainably with the welfare of the producers in mind. Read more at our blog post, how is avocado oil made?

Soap recipes usually include olive oil, but we've replaced it with avocado oil, castor oil and rice bran oil to create a bar of soap with good hardness and cleansing power, and a decent lather too. Enjoy!

Equipment:

Gloves
Goggles
Digital thermometer
Weighing scales
Measuring jugs, ideally 2x 1L and 1x 2L
Heatproof bowl
Soap mould or DIY alternative
Stick blender
Silicone spatula

Ingredients:

Safety note: Sodium hydroxide is hazardous, and will burn your skin and eyes if it touches them. Wear gloves and goggles at all times. If it gets on your skin, rinse well with plenty of water for 15 minutes. In case of eye contact, rinse well for 15 minutes and seek medical attention. Keep away from pets and children at all times.

Makes 9-10 bars of soap

Takes 1 hour making time and 4-6 weeks curing time

This recipe uses a 5% superfat for extra moisturising effects.

Method:

1. Mix the sodium hydroxide solution

Put your gloves and goggles on.
Open the window, the fumes will be unpleasant.
Weigh the water.
Weigh the sodium hydroxide.
Add the sodium hydroxide to the water, not the other way around.
Mix well until combined.
Leave to cool down, it will be hot.

Weigh base oils for making avocado soap

2. Weigh and melt the oils

Weigh the avocado oil, cocoa butter, coconut oil, rice bran oil and castor oil into a heatproof bowl.
Heat over a pan of boiling water, or in a microwave using short bursts.
Mix well until melted
Remove from the heat and allow to cool

Test temperature of lye solution

3. Check the temperatures

Test the temperature of the sodium hydroxide solution, you're looking for between 25C and 40C.
Leave to cool if necessary, but don't reheat if it's too cool. Just heat the oils a little more to compensate.
Test the temperature of the oils, ideally they should be between 35C and 40C.
Reheat or cool if necessary.
When the temperatures are right, add the sodium hydroxide solution to the oil mixture

4. Blend until trace

Mix with the stick blender and blend with short bursts.
Watch for the mixture starting to thicken.
Test for trace by dripping soap batter on the surface of the mixture. If the drips sit on the surface then your mixture has reached trace.
When your soap has reached a light trace, add the essential oils.
Mix and blend until combined

5. Pour into moulds

Pour the soap mixture into moulds. We're using our rectangle soap mould, you can find more soap moulds like this here!
Tap the mould to get rid of air bubbles
Leave on a flat surface for 48 hours before unmoulding

6. Unmould and cure

Take your soap out from the mould
Put the bars with gaps in between them, and leave to cure for 4-6 weeks.

Continue reading

Now that you've learned how to make avocado soap, why not continue your DIY beauty journey?

Interested in more soap recipes? Try our lavender cold process soap recipe.
Want to learn to make shampoo? Try our shampoo bar recipe
Heard of hot process soap making? Try our easy hot process soap recipe

Did you try our avocado soap recipe? Comment below and let us know how it came out.

Tags cold process soap making

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