Beer Soap in my Christmas Gift

My son bought the cutest soap mold as a Christmas gift for me, and I could hardly wait to use it! I pondered what wonderful soap I’d create for this mold. I’ve been using the same recipe a lot lately, and I wanted to mix things up a bit. (Plus I used up all my rice bran oil – ugh!)

I love this little soap mold!

Inspiration struck when I found a partially full bottle of beer that had been sitting out for the better part of the night. I poured it out into a jar and put it in the fridge. Ingredient one – beer. I love a good beer soap! The lather is out of this world!

What oils to add? I’ve had a jar of Babassu Oil waiting for its time to shine, so I grabbed it as a replacement for some of the Coconut Oil I usually use. It’s lighter than Coconut Oil, and it has excellent moisturizing properties. Babassu is a newer product in our catalog, and I hope you’ll give it a try.

I have some Virgin Macadamia Nut Oil also that I’ve wanted to use, so I chose that instead of my usual Shea Butter. I’m looking forward to using this fabulous oil in some leave-on products, but I think it will also be a lovely addition to soap as a luxury oil. Our Virgin Macadamia Nut Oil is from the first pressing, and it has the most enticing nutty aroma! (I wish I could somehow let you smell it – so delicious!)

Bringing down the temperatures in a sink of cold water.

I rounded out the substitutions with Aloe Extract, which is infused in canola oil. I can use that in place of some of the Olive Oil. Aloe is also wonderful for the skin! I’ve wanted to use it in a soap for a while.

I decided to add some Sodium Lactate to this recipe as a hardener because there are more soft and liquid oils than I generally use.

Tada – my new recipe!

Since I was using beer as my liquid, I wanted to soap at lower temperatures, so I put both the lye mixture and the oils in a sink of cold water to cool them below 100 degrees. I ended up getting both to about 105 degrees and called it good.

Come join me in the kitchen and we’ll make some soap!

Since I did not have a specific fragrance idea, I grabbed a few bottles of fragrance oils without looking at the labels and chose Relaxation based solely on how wonderful it smells!

I grabbed a funnel measuring cup in each hand and poured the two colors simultaneously, trying to swirl them randomly as I poured.

The swirls turned out so pretty! The end of our Soap Spoon is the perfect swirl tool.

The label on the beer I’m using is red, so I decided it would be fun to use Brick Red Oxide to color the soap. Then I changed my mind and decided to do a swirl. Since the beer/lye mixture was dark and would discolor the soap, I added Titanium Dioxide to my list of things to use. I used the white colorant to make just over half the soap batter a lighter cream color. The red colorant went into the smaller portion of soap batter. Then I poured the two batters together into my mold and used the end of my soap spoon to make some pretty swirls. Unfortunately, with the raised designs in the mold, the swirls didn’t reach all the way to the bottom of the mold. Next time I use this mold and want a swirled soap, I’ll do an in-pot swirl.

These little goats are so cute.

I wish the swirl had gone down into the goats’ faces, but overall I like it.

I’m delighted with how this soap turned out, and when I proudly showed my son the wet soap in the mold that he gave me, he eyed it and said it looks like mayonnaise and ketchup. UGH! Now I can’t unsee mayo and ketchup! Oh well. I’m sure it will be a fantastic skin-loving bar of soap.

I’m glad I added the Sodium Lactate to firm up the bar. It unmolded easily, despite being pretty soft. I think it will be a good, hard bar after curing. As for the color, it has changed a lot and no longer resembles condiments. (Whew!)

Did you get any soap making or crafting goodies for Christmas that made you inspired to create something right away? We’d love to hear about it!