Turmeric soap Recipe

This is one of the easiest soaps you can make! This turmeric soap recipe incorporates the anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties of turmeric, with the hydrating benefits of aloe vera to make a deeply moisturizing, and healing soap that your skin will adore.

One of my favorite things to make is homemade soap – for a number of reasons. When you share your soap, people are impressed, but it’s only because they don’t know how easy it really is to make.

The main driver for  me is when I finally realized the reason I was breaking out every time I traveled is because commercial soap left a residue that irritated my skin. So now, I’m even more passionate about making my own soap, and make sure to take it with me no matter where I go.

Do you have to use lye to make homemade soap?

In short, yes. When people talk bout making lye-free soap, they’re buying a soap base (pre-made soap) to melt down, and add their unique spin on.

Lye is what makes soap through a process called saponification. This is when fats or oils are converted to glycerol and soap via friction with sodium hydroxide (lye). This process both neutralizes the lye and the oil, creating a whole new compound – soap.

I won’t lie – it took me years after my first interest to begin making soap because of my fear of lye. This probably stemmed from a tragedy in my community that harmed a little girl who was exposed to crystalized lye.

Lye IS caustic, and should be handled with care. But because I’ve handled it properly by not letting pure lye touch my skin, using non-reactive tools and bowls such as glass and stainless steel, and keeping it stored properly, in over fifteen years of soap making, I have never had so much as a finger burn.

Fats and oils for soap making

The most common types of oils for soapmaking are also easily available.

Each fat has a unique quality that affects your soap differently.

• Olive oil creates a stable lather, and soft bar. This is what’s used in making castile soap. But personally, I like to combine it with an oil that makes a harder bar.
• Coconut oil and palm kernel oil both help to create that harder bar, as well as boost the cleansing quality, and create a fluffy after. These two oils also help speed up the time it takes to make your soap by bringing it a trace more quickly.
• Lard and tallow are also create for making a hard, conditioning bar, and a stable lather.

Lard, as you probably know, has been a standard in the American south throughout our history. This is because pigs were (and still are) livestock who thrive in our climate, and an easily attainable fat source.

Today, Tallow is making a comeback, but I view that as less sustainable for most of us, since most grass-fed cows don’t produce as much tallow as a pig does lard.

The bottom line for me is that we don’t currently produce enough animals for our personal use to make soap as well as do our cooking, I tend to stick to vegetarian formulas for my soap making.

That said the oils you use are personal preference. If you wish to change the oils used in this recipe from those outlined below, Use a lye calculator like this one to determine the exact quantities you’ll need.

Turmeric Soap Recipe Ingredients

• Water
• Lye
• Coconut oil
• Olive oil
• Powdered turmeric
• Orange essential oil (optional)
• Eucalyptus oil (optional)
• Aloe vera gel
• Orange zest (optional)

These ingredients come together quickly to make a wonderful, anti-inflammatory, moisturizing bar of soap. I really like the beautiful scent that the orange and eucalyptus oils contribute to this recipe, but they are strictly optional.

If you would like, you can also change them to different essential oils, such as lemon.

I would caution against using fragrance oils, however. These kinds of oils smell nice, but can react with your mixture to cause it to seize.

How to make Turmeric soap

To make soap, you need a few kitchen tools:

• A scale that weighs in grams.
• A large glass or stainless steel bowl. You can also use a pot if you don’t have a large enough bowl.
• An immersion blender, hand mixer, or stand mixer
• Smaller glass or stainless tell bowls for weighing ingredients
• Soap mold. This can be anything non-reactive that will half liquid. It’s best if it’s a flexible container to make it easy to remove your soap once it’s set up, But I have used a glass casserole dish before. A cleaned out milk carton can work (you can tear it away), and silicon baking dishes work great. I also have some plastic molds from Hobby Lobby (shown in the process photos), and most of the time, I use my silicon loaf mold (the bars pictures are from that), which is nice and easy for making bulk batches.

You may also want to wear rubber gloves to protect your skin from splashes, and goggles if you tend to get close to what you’re making, to protect your eyes from vapor.

Also be sure to make your soap in a well-ventilated area. The dissolving lye does create fumes!

Turmeric Soap Recipe

• 173 grams of soft or distilled water
• 68 grams lye (sodium hydroxide)
• 250 grams of coconut oil
• 250 grams of olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon powdered turmeric
• 5ml orange essential oil
• 5ml eucalyptus oil
• 2 Tablespoons aloe vera gel
• Dried Zest from one orange (for decoration, optional)

Instructions for making soap

1. Combine coconut and olive oil in a pan, and heat gently until coconut oil is melted, and melted oils reach about 100º-110ºF. (you can also microwave the oils in a microwave-safe bowl.)
2. Combine water and lye in a large, non-reactive bowl, and stir until dissolved.
   
   
3. Let cool until the lye solution reaches 100º-110ºF.
4. Wen ingredients reach the correct temperature, pour oils into lye mixture, stirring constantly as you pour.
   
   
5. When oils are all poured in, switch to your immersion blender, or hand mixer, and begin to blend and stir, pulsing your immersion blender if that’s what you’re using
   
6. Continue to blend until soap begins to trace – about 5-8 minutes. This means that the utensil you’re stirring with leaves an impression as you stir – the soap is thickening up like pudding.
   
   
7. As this point, add remaining ingredients except orange zest, and continue blending until the soap reaches a nice, thick trace. At this point, the stiffness of your trace is personal preference. I like it to be pretty thick, so that it can sort of dome up nicely in the mold.
   
   
8. Pour soap into molds, and sprinkle with orange zest if desired.
   
   
9. Set molds in a place where they can remain undisturbed until set – at least 24 hours. I like to leave mine in the mold for 2-4 days.
   
   
10. Remove from molds, and set the soap bars aside, out of direct light to cure for 3 weeks.

When soap is ready to use, the ph level should be between 8-10. However, you may not care to buy ph strips for testing, in which case, you can just stick to curing it for a generous three weeks.

After this, it’s ready to use! I like to make a variety of soaps to have on hand for gift, and lately, we’ve (my daughter and I) been enjoying making them for our town’s little farmer’s market.

With that in mind:

Other soap recipes you’ll love

• Goat milk soap
• Coffee Scrub soap
• Rosemary goat milk soap
• Lavender oatmeal soap
• Lemongrass goat milk soap

This turmeric-infused recipe is excellent for dry skin, as well as skin that is prone to acne – as I mentioned above, I use exclusively homemade soap on my face in order to minimize breakouts. 

As a cold-process soap recipe, this is one of the easiest ways to make homemade soap there is, so if you’re new to soap-making, this is a great place to start!