Pumpkin Spice Soap

It’s right around the corner – pumpkin spice EVERYTHING! That distinctive blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and cloves flavors everything from lattes to muffins. The scent shows up in candles, potpourri, and even homemade playdough! Today I’m going to put it in some soap. Make your bars ASAP so they will be cured in time for fall.

Finished bars of Pumpkin Spice Soap.

Our Pumpkin Spice Fragrance Oil smells incredible. It’s like someone liquified a freshly-baked pumpkin pie! I love this description from our catalog:

“Pumpkin Spice is a delectable blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, ginger blended with pumpkin, a hint of harvest apple, caramel and cream. With a single whiff, your mouth will start to water, and you will fall in love.”

It’s true! That’s just how it smells, and you will immediately crave anything made with pumpkin. Thank goodness I had to open a can of pumpkin to make this soap, so I had all but a tablespoon left to make a pie. That made my day!

Let’s see what we can put together – gather up these supplies and make some soap with me.

Making Soap:

Before you get started, get prepared to soap safely. Long sleeves, gloves, eye protection, and close-toed shoes are a must. If you have never made cold process soap before, we’re glad you’re here! Please check out this blog post, which is the first in a series on beginning soapmaking.

Weigh all the oils into a microwave-safe container; set aside.

Weigh the fragrance oil into a small glass container; set aside.

Weigh the lye; set aside.

Weigh the liquid you will be using. In this soap, I am using two different liquids (distilled water and goat milk) and will employ the half and half method. I’m beginning with half the liquid in water (4 ounces), to which I will add all the lye. The other half of the liquid (4 ounces of milk) will be added later when the batter is about halfway to trace.

Gathering up needed supplies before starting ensures you aren’t trying to find a particular ingredient when you’re ready for it.

Lye solution and melted oils are nearly the same temperature and in the target range of around 135 degrees.

Slowly add the lye to the water, stirring. Do this in a well-ventilated area. It will give off toxic fumes that you do not want to inhale. Once the lye is completely dissolved, set the mixture aside to cool. (My lye mixture was 148 degrees at this point, so I put it on the windowsill to cool.)

Pop the oils into the microwave to melt, using 30-second increments. Once they are completely liquid, set them aside to cool. (The temperature was 128 degrees, and I put it on the windowsill also.) Today is a chilly day, and I know the temperature in the workroom will not be as warm as it is on a sunny, warm day, so I will be soaping at a bit higher temperature than I usually do. I’m going to aim for around 135 degrees.

Here is your break to clean up your workspace, set out the mold you will use, visit the restroom. Once the oils and the lye mixture have reached the target temperature, you’re ready to make soap.

Carefully pour the lye mixture into the oils, taking care not to splash. Stir with your soap spoon or flexible scraper, then pulse the stick blender several times to emulsify the soap batter.

The soap batter is at a light trace, which is about halfway done mixing. Now is the time to add the other half of the liquid – milk in this case.

It’s also time to drop in the pumpkin puree and mix well.

When you think the mixture is about halfway to trace, add the milk and pumpkin puree. The soap batter quickly thickened after I’d stick blended enough to fully incorporate the pumpkin. I removed my stick blender and hand-stirred the fragrance oil into the batter. I checked the temperature of the soap batter, which was 129 degrees – just about right.

Now just pour the soap into the prepared mold. It was thick, but it was still very liquid. I had to wait a few minutes for the batter to be thick enough to put a design on the top. I ended with a sprinkle of cinnamon over the top of the soap.

Pouring the soap into the mold. In this case, I used a Rubbermaid 2912 drawer organizer lined with plastic wrap.

After pouring the soap, I let it sit a few minutes to become thick enough that I could make a design on the top.

This soap mold does not have a lid, and the decorative top was a bit taller than the top of the mold due to the design, so I could not put anything directly on it. I ended up putting a plastic container over the soap mold and piling towels on top of that to keep the heat in.

The finishing touch was a sprinkle of cinnamon over the top of the soap.

The finished soap. I probably sprinkled too much cinnamon on the top. We’ll see how it looks later

Notes:

Fast forward to the next day when the soap is hard enough to remove from the mold and cut. When I uncovered the soap, I was sad to see the top had collapsed, and the pretty cinnamon sprinkle had darkened considerably and more closely resembled the color cinnamon turns when sprinkled on melted butter. I knew I’d sprinkled too much cinnamon, darn it! The scent of this soap makes up for any lack in the way it looks, though. As I was cutting it and setting up the photos, I began to dream about pumpkin French toast, pumpkin pecan bars, and pumpkin bread. I think I will make pumpkin French toast for dinner!

If you make this soap, how would you style the top? I considered keeping out a small amount of the batter before adding the pumpkin, adding Titanium Dioxide to make it white, and piping it on top of the soap to resemble whipped cream. What kind of ideas do you have?