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Facial bars

Facial bar

Small, pale sage-cream face soap bars beside a glass dish of green hemp seed oil, a few hemp seeds and a small bottle of golden jojoba on a soft pink backdrop

A mild, unscented face bar: olive oil with hemp seed oil, shea butter and a tenth jojoba, the liquid wax, at an 8 % superfat. It cleans lightly with a soft, low lather, and a pinch of rosemary extract helps the hemp oil keep.

Skill
Beginner
Method
Cold process
Batch
1000 g of oils about 1376 g of batter
Hands-on
1 hour
Cure
6 weeks
Gel phase
Either way gel or not, both work
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What you need

For 1000 g of oils, which fills a 1.5 litre loaf mould. Weigh everything, liquids included.

Olive Oil · 40.0 % 400 g 14.11 oz
Hemp Seed Oil · 15.0 % 150 g 5.29 oz
Shea Butter · 15.0 % 150 g 5.29 oz
Coconut Oil · 15.0 % 150 g 5.29 oz
Castor Oil · 5.0 % 50 g 1.76 oz
Jojoba Oil · 10.0 % 100 g 3.53 oz
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) · the lye, 100 % pure 124.0 g 4.37 oz
Distilled water · for a 33 % lye solution 251.7 g 8.88 oz
Rosemary extract (ROE) · about 20 drops, stirred into the liquid oils; an antioxidant against rancid orange spots, not a scent 0.5 g 0.02 oz
Superfat
8 %
Temperatures
Oils and lye solution each at 35 to 40 °C (95 to 104 °F)

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Method

  1. Get ready

    Put on splash goggles, nitrile gloves and long sleeves, open a window or turn on the extractor fan, and keep children and pets out of the room. Line a 1.5 litre loaf mould and set it where it can stay for two days.

  2. Weigh the oils

    Weigh 150 g shea butter and 150 g coconut oil into the soaping pot, and 400 g olive oil, 150 g hemp seed oil, 100 g jojoba and 50 g castor oil into a jug. Add 0.5 g rosemary extract, about 20 drops, to the jug and stir.

  3. Make the lye solution

    Weigh 251.7 g distilled water into a heat-safe jug and 124.0 g sodium hydroxide into a dry container. At the open window or under the fan, pour the lye slowly into the water, never the water onto the lye, stir until clear and leave it to cool, labelled and out of reach.

  4. Melt the butters

    Melt the shea butter and coconut oil together on the lowest heat until clear, take the pot off the heat and pour in the jug of liquid oils. The hemp oil never needs heating, and it keeps better if it isn't.

  5. Check the temperatures

    Carry on when the oils and the lye solution are each between 35 and 40 °C (95 and 104 °F).

  6. Blend to light trace

    Pour the lye solution into the oils down the shaft of the stick blender, tap the blender to let trapped air out, then pulse for a few seconds at a time, stirring between pulses. This olive-rich batter traces slowly; stop at light trace, when a drizzle leaves a faint line that sinks back within seconds.

  7. Pour and cover

    Pour into the mould, tap it on the worktop to release air bubbles and smooth the top. Lay baking paper on the surface to keep soda ash off, then cover with a board or lid.

  8. Clean up

    With your gloves still on, wipe the batter off the pot and tools with paper towels into the bin, then wash them in hot soapy water.

  9. Unmould and cut

    After 36 to 48 hours, when the loaf is firm, unmould it with gloves on and cut it into bars about 2.5 cm (1 in) thick. Cut each bar in half if you like: a small face bar dries out between uses and lasts longer.

  10. Cure

    Stand the bars on edge on a rack in a dry, airy room out of direct sun for six weeks, turning them every few days.

  11. Store in the dark

    Once cured, wrap the bars in paper or keep them in a box somewhere cool and dark, and use them within about a year; light and warmth are what turn hemp oil rancid.

Tips

  • The calculator weighs lye for the jojoba as if it all turned into soap. Much of it does not, so the lye it was given goes to the other oils: if none of the jojoba reacted, their own superfat would be about 3 %, with the jojoba left free on top. That is still a safe margin, and it is why the recipe runs at 8 % rather than 5 %.
  • Unrefined hemp seed oil is green and smells grassy; it tints the bar a pale sage cream that fades towards beige as it cures. Refined hemp oil gives a paler bar.
  • For a face bar with kaolin clay and silk, see the kaolin and silk facial bar. The variants of this recipe swap the hemp for rosehip, evening primrose or other seed oils.

Why make it

This bar is built for washing a face rather than a body: 10 for cleansing and 62 for conditioning on our scale, and no scent. The jojoba is a liquid wax, not an oil, and reacts with lye far more slowly than true oils, so much of it stays in the bar unchanged; Susan Miller Cavitch valued it for exactly that, as a stable, unsaponified superfat. Hemp seed oil brings a lot of linoleic and linolenic acid, which makes a softer bar that can turn rancid, hence the pinch of rosemary extract. The American Academy of Dermatology advises a gentle, non-abrasive, alcohol-free cleanser, lukewarm water and fingertips rather than a cloth. The honest caveat is pH: every true soap is alkaline, and in one Indian study most bars tested had a pH of 9 to 10, well above the skin's own 5 or so, so anyone whose face feels tight after soap may prefer a soap-free cleanser.

Sources

What tradition, makers' experience and research say about soaps like this, each labelled for what it is. It is not medical advice, and no soap treats a skin condition: if you have one, ask a doctor or pharmacist.

What the numbers say

  • Lauric acid 7.4 %
  • Myristic acid 2.8 %
  • Palmitic acid 8.9 %
  • Stearic acid 8.4 %
  • Ricinoleic acid 4.4 %
  • Oleic acid 39.0 %
  • Linoleic acid 14.7 %
  • α-Linolenic acid 3.6 %
  • Other 12.7 %

Saturated : unsaturated 30 : 70

Hardness 27 below 29–54
Cleansing 10 below 12–22
Conditioning 62 44–69
Bubbly lather 15 14–46
Creamy lather 22 16–48

Computed from the fatty acids of the fats above. The bands are what the craft has settled on, not chemistry — a bar outside one is not wrong.

Try it differently

17 variations

The same soap with one thing moved. Each opens in the calculator ready to change again.

From the guides

All guides
Intermediate 11 min read

Superfat and lye discount: why recipes leave some oil unsaponified

What superfat and lye discount mean, how the calculator applies them, where makers set them for each soap, and why oil added at trace isn't the oil left over.
Advanced 13 min read

Dreaded orange spots (DOS) and rancid soap

What the orange spots on handmade soap are, why polyunsaturated oils, old fats and trace metals cause them, and which additives the tests show actually help.
Advanced 15 min read

Antioxidants and chelators: keeping soap from going off

What rosemary extract, vitamin E, BHT, EDTA and sodium citrate do in soap, the doses in our database, and how much evidence stands behind each one.

Where these proportions come from

Our own formulation: an olive-rich face bar with 15 % coconut oil for a light lather, hemp seed oil and shea butter, and 10 % jojoba, a liquid wax that reacts with lye far more slowly than true oils, so much of it stays in the bar as free, unreacted material alongside the 8 % superfat.

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