Oatmeal and honey scrub bar
An unscented scrub bar of lard, olive and coconut oil with coarsely ground oats all through it, whole oats on top and a spoonful of honey for lather. It cures to a cream-coloured, hard-wearing bar for hands and body.
- Skill
- Beginner
- Method
- Cold process
- Batch
- 1000 g of oils about 1481 g of batter
- Hands-on
- 1 h 10 min
- Cure
- 4 weeks
- Gel phase
- No keep it cool
What you need
For 1000 g of oils, which fills a 1.5 litre loaf mould. Weigh everything, liquids included.
| Lard · 40.0 % | 400 g | 14.11 oz |
| Olive Oil · 30.0 % | 300 g | 10.58 oz |
| Coconut Oil · 25.0 % | 250 g | 8.82 oz |
| Castor Oil · 5.0 % | 50 g | 1.76 oz |
| Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) · the lye, 100 % pure | 141.6 g | 4.99 oz |
| Distilled water · for a 34 % lye solution | 280.3 g | 9.89 oz |
| Honey · 2 tbsp, warmed and loosened with 1 tbsp of the warm oils | 42 g | 1.48 oz |
| Rolled oats, coarsely ground · 2 tbsp, ground in a spice grinder to a coarse meal | 11.5 g | 0.41 oz |
| Rolled oats, whole · 1 tbsp, scattered over the top | 5.8 g | 0.20 oz |
- Superfat
- 5 %
- Temperatures
- Oils and lye solution each at 35 to 38 °C (95 to 100 °F), no warmer, because of the honey
Method
-
Get ready
Open a window, put on splash goggles, nitrile gloves and long sleeves, and line or set out a 1.5 litre loaf mould. Clear a shelf in the fridge in case the loaf runs hot later. -
Grind the oats
Pulse rolled oats in a spice or coffee grinder to a coarse meal, with some pieces still visible, and weigh 11.5 g (2 tbsp). Keep 5.8 g (1 tbsp) of whole rolled oats aside for the top. -
Weigh everything
Weigh 400 g lard and 250 g coconut oil into the pot, 300 g olive oil and 50 g castor oil into a jug, and 42 g (2 tbsp) honey into a small heatproof cup. Weigh 280.3 g distilled water into the lye jug and 141.6 g sodium hydroxide last, into a dry container. -
Make the lye solution
At an open window or under the extractor fan, pour the sodium hydroxide slowly into the water, never the water onto the lye, and stir until clear. Keep your face out of the vapour and leave it to cool, labelled and out of reach; the honey never goes in here. -
Melt the fats
Melt the lard and coconut oil on the lowest heat, then pour in the olive and castor oils. Let the oils and the lye solution each come to 35 to 38 °C (95 to 100 °F): warm enough to keep the lard melted, cool enough to leave room for the honey's heat. -
Loosen the honey
Stir a tablespoon of the warm oils into the cup of honey so that it pours easily. -
Blend to light trace
Pour the lye solution into the oils down the shaft of the stick blender, then pulse for a few seconds at a time, stirring between pulses. Stop at light trace, when the batter looks like thin custard and a drizzle leaves a faint line that sinks back within seconds. -
Add the honey
Stir the honey in by hand, then give one or two short pulses to spread it. Honey speeds trace and warms the batter, so from here work steadily. -
Add the oats
When the batter has thickened to medium trace, like pudding, stir in the ground oats by hand; in thinner batter they sink to the bottom of the bars. -
Pour and top
Pour into the mould, tap it on the worktop and smooth the top. Scatter the whole oats over it and press them in lightly with the flat of the spatula. -
Keep it cool
Leave the mould uncovered, with no towel, in a cool room and out of reach. If the top starts to crack or dome in the first few hours, move the mould into the fridge overnight. -
Clean up
With your gloves still on, wipe the batter off the pot and tools with paper towels into the bin, then wash everything in hot soapy water. -
Unmould and cut
After 24 to 48 hours, when the loaf is firm and back at room temperature, put your gloves back on and unmould it. Lay it on its side and cut bars about 2.5 cm (1 in) thick, so the knife doesn't drag the top oats down the face. -
Cure
Stand the bars on edge on a rack with air around them, out of the sun, for four to six weeks, turning them every few days.
Tips
- Honey warms the colour to cream or light tan. Orange or brown streaks mean the batch got too hot; soap it cooler next time and don't cover it.
- Coarse oats scratch, which is the point of this bar. For a face, grind them to a fine flour or use colloidal oatmeal instead.
- Oats can occasionally cause skin reactions, so name them on the label if you give the soap away.
The oils
| Oil | Share |
|---|---|
| Lard (pure rendered pork fat) | 40.0 % |
| Olive Oil (virgin / refined / olive oil) | 30.0 % |
| Coconut Oil | 25.0 % |
| Castor Oil | 5.0 % |
How it is made
| Process | Cold process |
| Alkali | NaOH |
| Superfat | 5 % |
| Water | lye water at 33 % |
| Iodine value | 56 |
| INS | 153 |
Why make it
An honest, hard-working scrub bar for hands after gardening or for rough elbows and heels. Lard and coconut oil make it hard and creamy, hardness 42 and cleansing 18 on our scale, and coarsely ground oats give a real but gentle scrub; the honey helps the lather along. It is unscented, which many people prefer for a bar used many times a day at the sink. Oats have a gentle name because colloidal oatmeal is a recognised skin protectant in leave-on products, though the FDA found no data for that use in cleansers (FDA, 2003), and coarse oats are here to scrub, not to protect. The American Academy of Dermatology notes that scrubbing can be too much for dry or sensitive skin, so keep this bar for hands and body, not the face. Lard means it is not vegetarian.
Sources
- Skin Protectant Drug Products for Over-the-Counter Human Use; Final Monograph (68 FR 33362), comment 15 · US Food and Drug Administration, 2003
- How to safely exfoliate at home · American Academy of Dermatology
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 12.3 %
- Myristic acid 5.4 %
- Palmitic acid 16.4 %
- Stearic acid 7.7 %
- Ricinoleic acid 4.4 %
- Oleic acid 40.8 %
- Linoleic acid 7.6 %
- Other 6.9 %
Saturated : unsaturated 45 : 55
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.
From the guides
All guides
Soap additives: salt, sugar, sodium lactate, clays, oats, silk and more
What common soap additives do, how much to use and when they go in: sourced doses for sodium lactate, salt, sugar, honey, citric acid, clays, oats and silk.
Gel phase: to insulate or keep it cool
What gel phase is, why a loaf turns dark and translucent, how gelled and ungelled bars differ, why partial gel is cosmetic, and how to cause or prevent it.
Trace: how to tell when soap batter is ready
What trace is, how to read emulsion, light, medium and thick trace, how to spot false trace, and what makes soap batter thicken faster or slower.
Where these proportions come from
Our own formulation: lard for a hard, creamy bar, with olive oil, a quarter coconut oil and a little castor oil at a 5 % superfat. The oats are ground coarser than they would be for a face bar, so that they scrub.