This olive oil soap recipe makes it easy to make your own homemade olive oil soap with just a few ingredients! It makes a wonderfully moisturizing and luxurious bar of soap!
You can follow the process in the olive oil soap recipe below to make your own soap and save a lot over buying it pre-made at a gift shop. You do have to be careful when making lye soap, but if you follow some basic safety procedures I outline below, you should be fine.
I’m sure you will want to stick to the recipe your first time making the olive oil soap, but once you get the hang of it, it is easy to modify according to your preference. So if you don’t want to use lard, if you have reactions to one of the oils, or if you’d just like a softer or harder soap, you will be able to modify.
If you prefer extra step by step instructions with 18 videos to help you feel more confident in soaping, my How to Make Soap for Beginners E-course includes everything you want to know about how to make olive oil soap including olive oil soap recipes is in there!
If you want to learn more about how to make olive oil soap be sure to check out my How To Make Soap Youtube Channel!
You can also purchase my homemade lye soaps by following this link.
Where I get my soap supplies for this olive oil soap:
I have included several links on places to get soap supplies. The places that I use the most right now are:
- Homemade Soap Making Supplies– My Soap Supply Store for Micas and Colorants, Molds and Thermometer.
- Essential Depot for Lye– Join their Greener Life Club for some GREAT deals like 20% off and free Shea butter with every order.
- Amazon for things like my mixing buckets, stick blender
Olive Oil Soap Recipe
Ingredients for 2 1/2 lbs. of olive oil soap
11.2 oz. Olive Oil
8.40 oz. Coconut Oil
5.60 oz. Lard or Palm Oil
1.4 oz. Castor Oil
1.4 oz. Avocado Oil
9.12 oz. Water
4.00 oz. Lye
How To Make Olive Oil Soap
Before making soap, be sure to wear gloves, long sleeves and goggles to prevent burns from the lye if you should accidentally spill or splash it on yourself. If you get lye on yourself, don’t panic. It’s not going to melt off your skin or anything. Just flush with water and wash off with soap. Be extra careful to never get it in your eyes. If you get it in your eyes, then you should seek medical attention immediately. If you get lye on your skin, just be sure to flush your skin with a lot of water and put on something like aloe if you see a small burn.
You can use any kind of mold that you like to make your olive oil soap. Now that I do a lot of soap making, I use silicone molds, like these from my store but you can use a box, cardboard box, drawer organizer or anything like that. If you want to calculate the volume of your mold you can find out how to do that here.
This olive oil soap recipe is for a 1 1/2 lb. batch of homemade soap. The 1 1/2 lbs. is the amount of oil you use in your soap. If you have a bigger or smaller mold, be sure to run your soap through a lye calculator like this one. Each oil uses lye differently so you need to do this every time you change your recipe and add or take away oils.
If you aren’t using a silicone mold, line your mold with a trash bag or a grocery sack with the inside of the bag toward the soap (so the print on the sack doesn’t get on your soap). The bag will keep your soap from sticking to your mold.
Don’t forget to put on your safety goggles and gloves before you mix the lye and water.
Measure the lye and water in separate containers. Pour the lye slowly into the water. (NEVER, EVER POUR THE WATER INTO THE LYE!! It can cause dangerous reactions.)
When you pour the lye into the water, the mixture will get very hot – around 200 degrees. Let it cool to at least 120 degrees, but you can go as low as room temperature. Then, warm your oils so that they are within 10 degrees of your lye water solution, at least 120 degrees but you can go down to room temperature just as long as they are both the lye water and oils are within 10 degrees of each other. (For example, if the lye solution is 115 degrees, oils can be 95-125 degrees.) You can put your lye solution in an ice bath (as I demonstrate in the video) to make it cool down quicker. Otherwise, it will take around 30- 45 minutes to cool down.
When your lye water and oils are at the right temperature, then slowly pour the lye water solution into the oils. Stir just briefly to mix. Then, using your hand blender, blend until it traces, about 2-5 minutes. Trace is when you lift the blender out and you see dots where the soap had dripped from the blender and it stays on top for a second or two before it blends back in.
After your lye and oils come to trace, add your essential oil if desired. Stir until mixed and then pour into your mold.
Move your soap into an area that is safe from kids and pets. Then cover it with a towel. If you think your towel will fall into the soap, you can put a box or shoebox on top of it first and then put the towel over it all. Then let it sit for 24 hours. After that, you can remove the soap from your mold and cut it with a big knife.
After you have cut the soap, let it cure for 4-6 weeks and you will have homemade olive oil soap!
More Information on How to Make Homemade Olive Oil Soap:
You can watch how I made this olive oil soap from beginning to end in our video to give yourself an idea of just how easy it really is to make homemade olive oil soap.
For a much more detailed step by step process for how to make homemade soap, including this olive oil soap, check out my How to Make Soap for Beginners e-course. With 3 e-books packed with information and recipes and 18 videos to walk you step by step through the soapmaking process, you’ll have all the information you need to make homemade soap!
You can also check out my How to Make Homemade Soap Youtube Channel, where I often make soap live and I share my successes and also how I save my near misses!
If you like, you can purchase my olive oil soap here.
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I love your colorful soaps. I’ve thought about making soap but the lye scares me!
Ann
I am like you Ann and the lye scared me but Tawra says it really isn’t that bad and probably you would only have to be as cautious as when you do something like frying something in hot grease on the stove.
I need a recommendation for super dry and paper thin skin due chemo. My skin has never been like this before cancer and chemo.
Regenia what you might try instead of soap is while you are in the shower to rub your body with plain olive oil. You can then just rinse off (of course it won’t all come off but that is ok) and towel dry. Don’t use soap at all except maybe for your arm pits and “delicate, private” :) areas. I have don’t this quite often and you would be surprised how clean you get and how nice it makes your skin feel. In our society we really get carried away the showering and scrubbing with soap and any dermatologist will tell you that people are drying out and harming their skin but they seem to keep doing it anyway. You might try this for a bit and see if it helps. Be careful though – I have a non skid floor but your tub or shower may be slick. I haven’t noticed because my tub has non skid.
I have cancer as well as severe psoriasis. If you shower , I use a sugar scrub sometimes fine grain of course. But also use olive oil. Olive oil let it set on skin in shower and give your body time for it to absorb, I sometimes add it in with honey and essential oils depending on what is going on with my skin at that moment in time😀
I completely love and appreciate your idea that you suggested! I completely agree with you that most of us are over-stripping our skin & hair of all its natural oil’s, which in turn creates a bunch of havoc on our skin. Personally I think by not taking a shower everyday and instead rubbing some hemp oil all over your body where your skin is extremely dry would help. Plus hemp oil is good for stimulating hair regeneration as a bonus. God Bless & I hope this helps someone.
i am a little confused on making a reciep for soaps. on what to use and the amounts for the lye calc. i really wanted to get into making soaps too, any advice on this issue ?
Sandra here is just one of many videos you might want to watch with Tawra making soap. There are so many I wasn’t sure which one to start with but this might help you to get started. Also if you want something where she starts at the very beginning and actually teaches it she is coming out with an E course that you might like too.Here is the link for that How Make Soap for Beginners
Thank you Tara! I can’t wait to get started!
Hi there!! When you make soap what kind of containers and utensils do you use for the unfinished, lye-heavy soap and mixing the lye water?? Do you use those same utensils/containers for preparing food after making soap?? Or do you have separate soap-making supplies and separate food-makin supplies??
No you don’t have to use separate soap making supplies- soap is used to wash the containers so it really doesn’t hurt to use the same containers for everyday.
I just made your olive oil soap recipe for the first time, and the soap didn’t come out of my silicone molds well after 24 hrs. I have made several batches of another recipe I have that has more lard and less oil and those come out of my molds well. Do you ever have trouble with this recipe being to soft to come out the molds at 24 hrs?
Vicki you may not have measured the lye quite right
I have a ton of solid Walmart brand vegetable shortening. Could I use that to replace the lard? I used lard in cooking for years and the result was the same. How about making soap?
Yes you can use it in place of the lard
What kind of colourant did you use in the pictures? I’m looking to get a long-lasting red colourant, ideally that I can buy locally, instead of having to go online.
You can’t buy this kind locally – you need to buy it online
call me stupid but what is lye
Lye is a product that in the simplest form is gotten from running water through ashes in certain method. Originally it was used in making soap and what many people don’t understand is you really can’t make soap with out using lye in some way. People tend to be afraid of it because in the same way that some household cleaners, paint products etc. you need to be careful of it and you need to do the same with lye. Eventually lye was then used to unclog toilets too. You can buy it online or at hardware stores. It is what Drain-o is made of.
What was the powder that Tawra added to the oils?
Your videos have convinced me to make some soap.
Thank You
The powder you are probably referring to is mica. It adds color to the soap. The color you probably saw was white which she uses quite a bit. Be sure to holler Pete if you have any other questions or need help with something. I am so excited that you are going to try your hand at soap making. Really think you will enjoy it.
How do you get the beautiful green color
You can add micas which is special coloring for soap here are examples that Tawra uses Micas
How much coconut milk and yogurt did you use for this batch & was the yogurt the Greek (thick) kind or the regular kind?
I use 1 Tbps. per pound of oil for each. Either yogurt is fine.
where did you get your raspberry lavender fo ???… I have been searching everywhere since I watched your video and have not found it anywhere.
She can’t remember Robynn but said that she buys most of her scents from Rustic Essentials so you might check there.
Tawra I would like to know how much goat milk do you use in your SBHP soaps PLEASE? Is it the same as the yogurt; 1Tbsp per pound of soap? Thanks Much
1 Tbps. per pound.
Tawra,
THANK YOU BIGLY❣️
Thank you for this recipe!
Newbie question: I would like to use a 30% w/w sodium hydroxide solution I bought to make this soap. Because this solution is 30% lye and 70% water, is it already at the correct ratio of water and lye by itself? It looks to me that it is already at the recommended ratio of 2.3 parts water to 1 part lye. Or do I still need to add the extra distilled water?
Looking forward to your answer, thank you!
Yes it will work just fine.
Is the lye ok for the dog soap too?
Yes it is and some people have said it has helped with fleas but something most people don’t understand about lye -they hear that and think it is something really scary and some kind of horrible chemical but all regular soap is made with lye. As a matter of fact if something isn’t made with lye it really isn’t soap. Lye is what makes soap soap. It would be like making a cup of coffee but you don’t put any hot water in it – it isn’t a cup of coffee it is just coffee granules. Like when you make coffee you have to be a little careful pouring the boiling water over the coffee not to burn yourself with the boiling water but you can drink it just fine when it cools down. In the same way when using lye you just need to be a little careful mixing it in but once mixed in it is just a bar of soap.
Also some say the oil in the soap is great for the dogs skin.