This is a spin on the classic skin-detoxing charcoal and tea tree soap, but using some luxurious oils and butters to really ramp up the skin conditioning properties.
25g castor oil (5%)
125g coconut oil (25%)
200g olive oil (40%)
50g shea butter (10%)
25g tamanu oil (5%)
75g cocoa butter (15%)
190g distilled water
16g tea tree essential oil (or do a combination of tea tree and lavender)
Before you do anything, please ensure you are wearing the appropriate protective clothing, including gloves and goggles. Do not let the lye mixture or the finished soap mixture touch your skin or you may get a lye burn. Keep pets and young children away. Work in a well ventilated area.
Slowly add the lye into the water and stir until dissolved. Set aside to cool. While your lye mixture is cooling, melt all your oils and butters together. Let the oil mixture also cool. Once both the lye mixture and the oils mixture have cooled down to around 50℃ (or lower but ideally within 10℃ of each other), slowly add the lye to the oils and blend with a stock blender until trace is reached. Add the activated charcoal and blend to incorporate, then add the essential oil and blend. If you like you can also add in some clay (this will make the soap lovely and creamy) but this is optional. Pour the soap batter into molds, tapping them to release any trapped air bubbles. Then insulate your soaps for at least 2-3 days, allowing them to harden up. Once they are hard you can remove them from their molds and leave to cure for at least 6 weeks.
Hi Juliette,
Which clay might one use, and what percentage/portion?
Hi Chantel, it will depend on the size of your soap mold or how big you cut your soap bars. The recipe adds up to 800g
How many soap bars do the ingredients make?
Hi Abigail, oh dear! If you left out the coconut oil you may end up with a lye heavy soap as there will be less oil available to use up in the lye reaction. I’m not too sure if the soap will be usable as the coconut oil made up 25% which is quite a lot.. you may need to start over. But you can always let the soap cure and then see.
what can i do if i forgot to add coconut oil?
and how does the soap look like at the end, i feel like i did something wrong
Hi Faye, you can try argan oil instead of the tamanu, and sure, you can use clay instead but then it won’t be an activated charcoal soap, it will just be a clay soap. We do have some recipes for clay soaps so perhaps check those out for more recipes :)
what can i substitue tamanu oil with in this recipe
and can i use kaolin clay instead of activated charcoal
Hi Spindarella, unfortunately we don’t have any samples to give away, sorry. But all the best with your business!
Good day. I’m starting a small business. May I please have samples of the soap ingredients if you have any. Thank you
perfect oil
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Juliette
December 06, 2021
Hi Debra, this recipe doesn’t call for any clay :)
But any clay can be used in soaps – I typically use kaolin clay at about 1 tablespoon per 500g soap.