Honeysuckle and Rose Soap

This ia a lovely gentle soap. I use a plastic loaf style box with a lid as a mold. The paprika is there if you want to give the soap a soft color. They also make a nice gift. You can make your own combination of fragrance and use different essential oils. I can not give you a trace time, they can differ depending on your stirring and surrounding temperatures. Work in a well ventilated area. Use an accurate scale for weighing the ingredients and please be careful when working with lye, protect yourself and your work surface, keep children away whilst making soap. A soap recipe cannot be halved or doubled without recalculating the amount of lye. You can always contact me if you need help.

• Ready In: 2 hrs 30 mins
• Yields: 1 loaf of soap

Ingredients

• 11 1⁄2 fluid ounces mineral water or 11 1⁄2 fluid ounces bottled water
• 4 1⁄2 ounces  lye (sodium hydroxide)
• 19  ounces olive oil
• 10 1⁄2 ounces coconut oil
• 3 1⁄2 ounces  sweet  almond oil
• 1  tablespoon  rose  essential oil
• 1⁄2 tablespoon  honeysuckle  essential oil
• 2 -3  teaspoons  finely ground paprika (optional)

Directions

1. Wear rubber gloves and goggles for protection, I also wear a mask to protect my mouth and nose.
2. Weigh all your base oils and place in good size stainless steel pan.
3. Weigh the water and pour into a large heatproof jug.
4. Whilst gently stirring add the lye slowly to the water until fully dissolved, try not to splash the lye and to inhale the fumes, the first burst of fumes wont last long.
5. Slowly heat the oil, remove from the heat.
6. Using one or two cook's thermometer's you want to get the lye and the oils both to about the same temperature of 115/120F, carefully pour the cooled lye into the pan with the oils whilst stirring.
7. Go on stirring until the soap will trace, it should leave a visible trail and have the thickness of a pourable custard, this can be 30 minutes up to hours, you can take breaks and go back to it for another stirring session.
8. When you are at the trace fase, add the essential oils and paprika powder if using, mix well.
9. Close or cover the mold and wrap in towels or a small blanket to insulate.
10. Leave for 48 hours, wearing gloves, turn out of the mold, cut in bars and leave to cure for three weeks somewhere cool and dark.
11. Note: where it reads Sweet Almond Extracts in the ingredients list.should be: Sweet Almond OIL, it is one of the base oils in this soap.