Candy Lemon Spring Soap – How to Make Cold Process Soap

I love making soap. Out of all the homesteading, natural, back to roots skills that I’ve learned over the past 15 years, making soap from scratch is definitely my favorite. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy that I can start a garden, keep a sourdough starter, and create herbal remedies. Those are all very important. But there’s something about the creative process of making soap that I just love. This candy lemon spring soap recipe is a pretty, easy, and smells amazing. If you’ve never learned, you can learn how to make cold process soap below, as well as in more details here.

Spring Soap Recipes

I have a few Spring soap recipes already here on my website. Check out 3 Spring Handmade Vegan Soap Recipes for recipes without tallow or lard. I love a good tallow soap bar. They are hard and last a long time, plus help to make use of every part of an animal in a very responsible way. But vegan soap recipes tend to be very luxurious, creamy, and moisturizing, making them a wonderful addition to your resources within the home.

I also have soaps to help with spring allergies. These soaps have essential oils that are often calming so that allergic reactions can be minimized. We keep them in our bathrooms during May and June when ours weed and tree allergies are the worst and have found them to be very helpful. Check them out here: 2 Allergy Relief Soap Recipes.

Spring Soap Ingredients

This recipe is not vegan, but I’ve given a vegan alternative to fit your needs or ingredients on hand. I’m aware that a lot of non-vegans may not have good tallow on hand and may have other ingredients like cocoa butter and shea butter ready to go. So, I’ve created two recipes below so that you can take your pick!

Tallow

Tallow makes a wonderful soap that is cleansing, not drying, and lasting. Make sure to use a good source of tallow so that you are not getting any extra unhealthy ingredients. Remember that you can substitute lard for tallow 1:1 in any cold process soap recipe.

Olive Oil

Olive oil is a great oil for converting oil into soap molecules. It doesn’t add a ton in the way of cleansing or moisturizing, but it is gentle because of the glycerin it adds.

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil adds cleansing power to soap. This recipe uses just enough to create a cleansing effect without being too cleansing so that it’s not drying in any way. A great balance!

Shea Butter

I like to add shea butter to soap, because it adds a creaminess to the soap bar. It makes the soap feel luxurious. Too much can be a bad thing, so if you’re making your own recipe, remember that making a recipe with a large percentage of shea butter can create a slimy feel. Instead, keep the percentage low and you’ll have a creamy, luxurious soap.

Avocado Oil

Avocado oil is a conditioning ingredient that creates good, medium bubbles. Like many other oils, it’s high in vitamins like A, B, D, and E.

Castor Oil

Castor oil is the great bubble builder! Large beautiful bubbles come from castor oil. Another way to get larger bubbles is to add sugar, but this can mess with your temperatures and overheat your soap batch, so my favorite ingredient for larger bubbles is castor oil.

Essential Oils

Always be aware of fragrance oils being sold as essential oils. They are not the same. Other questionable companies dilute essential oils or “stretch” them by adding fragrance oils to essential oils. Pure essential oils will give you less problems than fragrance oils, plus they are pure, natural, healthy, and not a questionable lab product. I get mine from mountain rose herbs and starwest botanicals. They aren’t ridiculously and needlessly expensive like some other companies, but are pure and strong.

I do not worry about being photosensitive when using lemon essential oil in this recipe. It is cold pressed, but there is not enough that I’ve seen to make a difference, plus it is washed off of your skin for the most part, leaving a trace, which isn’t enough to cause any issues. If you have had a different experience let me know.

Coloring

I like to use annatto seeds for yellow coloring, because it’s natural and creates a beautiful bright yellow that doesn’t fade. It’s easy to add some annatto to the oils as they melt and then scoop them out before pouring in the lye water.

Cany Lemon Spring Soap

This recipe makes 3lbs of soap or 12-four ounce bars.

The superfat content is 10%. This first recipe has tallow. The second does not, in case you do not have a source of healthy tallow or lard.

Equipment needed:

• a large stainless steel pot
• a large stainless steel spoon
• A glass bowl
• scale
• rubber spatula
• 3lb soap mold
• measuring spoons

The essential oil blend I am using in this soap is lavender, vanilla, and lemon. This creates a sweet lemony scent that is amazing!

As an alternative to the above ingredients, you can follow the same instructions with melting the oils and adding annatto seeds to the warm oils by using the vegan recipe below.

Candy Lemon Spring Soap – Vegan Recipe

This recipe has 10% superfat and also makes 3lbs of soap.

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces olive oil
• 8 ounces coconut oil
• 5 ounces cocoa butter
• 5 ounces castor oil
• 4 ounces avocado oil
• 3 ounces shea butter
• 1 tablespoon annatto seeds
• 10.5 ounces water
• 4.3 ounces lye
• 0.30 ounces lavender essential oil
• 0.35 ounces vanilla essential oil
• 0.35 ounces lemon essential oil

Instructions

1. Weigh all oils and butter and combine in a large stainless steel pot and melt. Add annatto seeds and stir well. Let cool to around 90 degrees Fahrenheit and then remove the annatto seeds. The oils should be a bright golden color.
2. Put on protective clothing such as gloves, goggles, and a charcoal mask (surgical masks are worthless). Weigh lye into a zip close bag. Weigh water in a bowl. Take lye and water outside to a location inaccessible to children and pets and pour lye into the water, stirring until fully dissolved. Let cool to around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Bring lye water in and when both oils and lye water are at the correct temperature, pour lye water into the oils and blend with an immersion blender on and off until light trace (it begins to thicken like pancake batter).
4. Add essential oils and blend well.
5. Scrape soap into the prepared mold and cover. Keep in a warm location (around 75-80 degrees) for 24 hours.
6. Remove from the mold and cut if necessary. If it’s still too soft to remove, then wait another 24 hours.

Enjoy!