Have you ever had something that every time you used it you said (or thought) to yourself “aww yeah, this is the stuff”?
That’s how I feel when I use this soap.
It’s mild, it’s soft, it’s invigorating, and it’s not your average soap bar.
It’s SO much more than that.
It’s all the comforts of your favorite cup of coffee in a bar of soap.
But that shouldn’t be intimidating. Far from it! This is one of the simplest, easiest homemade soap recipes you will ever make!
Here’s a few things you should know about my soap recipes:
I like to keep things simple, and for that reason, I tend to use very basic fats. Different fats have a different affect on your final bar. Some make it soft, some make it hard, others make a frothy lather, or a stable lather.
That said, the saponification process chemically changes the oil into something completely different. That was a tough pill for me to swallow when I first learned about the different affects the different oils had, and that I would need to add corn or soy oil to my soap bars to counteract the hardness of the coconut oil in them.
Up until that point, I had been avoiding industrial cooking oils (soy, corn, canola) like a plague.
But soaping up with a saponified oil is far different from ingesting the raw oil, and so, my family benefits from a far softer bar of soap.
So having mentioned the soy, and coconut oils, the other main oil I use is olive oil.
An important thing to note about using coconut and olive oils in soap making, is that you don’t actually need to use the highest quality, most expensive oil on the market. Actually, the second pressing olive oil makes a higher quality bar than extra virgin, as does expeller pressed coconut oil. (You can read all about the best oils for soap making in the book The Soapmaker’s Companion)
The other two ingredients in this soap recipe are pretty obvious – you need coffee, to make it coffee soap, and lye to make, well, to make it soap.
So here goes!
Homemade Coffee Scrub Soap Recipe
Ingredients:
- 6 oz of hot spring/purified water
- 1 teaspoon coffee grounds
- 2 oz lye
- 5 oz coconut oil
- 5 oz olive oil
- 6 oz soybean oil (also known as vegetable oil)
Instructions:
- Tip: you will want a digital read out food scale for the most accurate results as using liquid measuring cups results in varying results)
- Mix coffee ground in water to make coffee and allow to cool
- Mix lye and coffee together until lye beads or crystals have dissolved
- Allow to cool again to between 120-130º (a great tool for instantly measuring your soaping temperatures is an infrared instant read thermometer)
- Combine oils and heat to about 120º as well
- When all your ingredients are relatively close in temperature, it’s time to mix them together!
- You can either mix vigorously with a spoon for as long as 45 minutes, or use a stick blender to pulse and stir – which should take about 5-6 minutes
- Either way, store until your soap mixture reaches a trace (you can read more about soap tracing here)
- Pour into molds, and cover
- Set your soap away in a safe place for a few days to let it set up and harden.
- After that, you can unfold your soap, and cut it into bars if you used a loaf type mold
- Put your soap back away in a safe place, and continue to let it cure for three weeks.
- That’s it! After three weeks, you soap is ready to use.
- Note: This is a cold process soap making method. You can read instructions here on how to make hot process soap, which can be used right away here (you can use these ingredients in place of the ones called for).
- Enjoy!
Recipes everyone can make!
Nourish your body with ingredients you already have in your kitchen!
Catherine scott says
Hi I made this soap 2 days ago and put the soap batter into a 6 cavity soap Mold it’s been over 48 hours and I’m still finding the bars a wee bit to soft to unmold yet is this typical for this soap to take a bit longer to harden I’ve made several different types of soap and have yet to wait longer than 24 hours to unmold thankyou !
Elise says
Hmmm, maybe try popping them in the fridge for a few hours to firm them up? I find that plastic molds are particularly difficult to get soap out of since the sides tend to stay soft until they’ve had a chance to air-cure.
Diana says
Is the coffee brewed or do you just soak the coffee in the water? Also do you strain out the grounds before you put the lye into the water then add the grounds into the oil mixture to blend?
Elise says
Just mix the grounds in the hot water, and allow it to cool. I don’t strain out the grounds because I want them in my soap, but that’s a personal preference.
Meeks says
Ive heard some people make the coffee (using their coffee pots), taking the grounds and putting them in the oven. Didn’t catch for how long or how high though. I do apologize
Happy says
How many bars of soaps did this produce?
Eliana Hernandez says
Yes, I wanted to know the same. How many pounds of soap is this for?
Falinda says
Why are there ‘cross throughs’? Is there a substitution not shown here?
Suzanne says
This looks so good! What a fun gift to make for friends or to enjoy yourself!
Vanessa says
Thanks for sharing! Does it keep long?
Lillypea McDonnell says
Hello and thank you for your recipe. I made this last week. I made it without using essential oils. I made 454g which made 6 bars. White spots appeared but I gouged 1 or 2 out in the hope that it wasn’t undissolved lye. My husband is the coffee lover, so after curing, he can use it.
I’m very new to soap making and am in awe of all the information available on the Internet. Many thanks for yours
Lillypea