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Pumpkin spice bar

Pale apricot pumpkin soap bars beside a small pumpkin and a bowl of pumpkin purée on a cobalt blue backdrop

A hard, bubbly lard and coconut bar tinted a soft apricot with real pumpkin purée at trace and scented with sweet orange and a little ginger. Kept cool and uninsulated, so the pumpkin's sugar doesn't overheat the loaf.

Skill
Intermediate
Method
Cold process
Batch
1000 g of oils about 1505 g of batter
Hands-on
1 hour
Cure
6 weeks
Gel phase
No keep it cool
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What you need

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

Lard · 26.0 % 260 g 9.17 oz
Coconut Oil · 26.0 % 260 g 9.17 oz
Olive Oil · 24.0 % 240 g 8.47 oz
Shea Butter · 9.0 % 90 g 3.17 oz
Castor Oil · 9.0 % 90 g 3.17 oz
Sunflowerseed Oil - High Oleic Acid · 6.0 % 60 g 2.12 oz
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) · the lye, 100 % pure 140.5 g 4.96 oz
Distilled water · for a 34 % lye solution 272.1 g 9.60 oz
Pumpkin purée, plain canned · blended smooth and chilled; not pie filling 62 g 2.19 oz
Sweet orange essential oil · 2.0 % of the oils, at trace 20 g 0.71 oz
Ginger essential oil · 1.0 % of the oils, at trace 10 g 0.35 oz
Superfat
5 %
Temperatures
Lye solution and oils both at about 32 °C (90 °F)

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Method

  1. Blend the pumpkin

    Stick blend 62 g of plain canned pumpkin, not pie filling, until completely smooth, and keep it in the fridge until you need it.

  2. Get ready

    Put on goggles, gloves and long sleeves, open a window or run the extractor, weigh every ingredient and line the mould.

  3. Make the lye solution

    Sprinkle the 140.5 g of sodium hydroxide into 272.1 g of cold distilled water, never the water onto the lye, and stir until clear. Leave it to cool where no one will knock it.

  4. Melt the fats

    Melt the lard, coconut oil and shea butter gently, then stir in the olive, castor and sunflower oils and let them cool.

  5. Soap it cool

    When the oils and the lye solution are both at about 32 °C (90 °F), pour the lye into the oils down the shaft of the stick blender.

  6. Blend to light trace

    Blend in short bursts, stirring between them, until the batter looks like thin custard.

  7. Add the pumpkin and scent

    Pulse in the pumpkin until the colour is even with no streaks, then stir in the orange and ginger oils by hand.

  8. Pour

    Pour into the mould, tap it on the bench to release air, and smooth the top.

  9. Don't insulate

    Leave the mould uncovered in a cool room, or in the fridge for the first few hours if your kitchen is warm: the pumpkin's sugar adds heat of its own, and a wrapped loaf can crack.

  10. Unmould and cut

    Unmould with gloves on after one to two days, when the loaf is firm, and cut it into bars.

  11. Cure

    Cure the bars on a rack with air around them for six weeks, turning them now and then.

Tips

  • Expect a pale apricot bar that mellows over the cure: pumpkin tints soap rather than dyeing it. For a stronger orange, infuse a teaspoon or two of annatto seed in some of the olive oil and strain it.
  • More pumpkin doesn't mean more colour, only a softer, wetter bar that is likelier to spoil; lumps spoil too, so blend it until there is nothing left to see.
  • For a vegan bar, use shea butter in place of the lard and run the recipe through the calculator again: the lye changes with the fat.

Why make it

An autumn soap for anyone who likes to make something seasonal, and a gentle introduction to purées. Real pumpkin tints the bar a soft apricot and its sugars add a little to the lather, which is already generous from the lard, coconut and castor oils, 26 bubbly and 30 creamy on our scale, in a bar hard enough, 41, to last. Pumpkin's carotenoids come through saponification intact (Rodriguez-Amaya et al.), which is why the colour holds, but in a soap that is rinsed off they are colour and nothing more. Sweet orange and a little ginger stand in for the spice, giving a warm smell that suits the season. As written it is not vegetarian; the tips give a lard-free swap.

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 12.8 %
  • Myristic acid 5.4 %
  • Palmitic acid 12.8 %
  • Stearic acid 9.6 %
  • Ricinoleic acid 8.0 %
  • Oleic acid 39.8 %
  • Linoleic acid 7.0 %
  • Other 6.2 %

Saturated : unsaturated 44 : 56

Hardness 41 29–54
Cleansing 18 12–22
Conditioning 55 44–69
Bubbly lather 26 14–46
Creamy lather 30 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.

From the guides

All guides
Intermediate 10 min read

Fruit and vegetable purées in soap

How much pumpkin, carrot, cucumber, avocado or banana to put in soap, when to add it, why purées overheat and spoil, what each really adds, and a recipe.
Beginner 7 min read

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.
Intermediate 14 min read

Scenting soap: essential oils and fragrance oils

How much essential or fragrance oil to use in soap, what ounces per pound mean in percent, the IFRA limits for common essential oils, and EU allergen labelling.

Where these proportions come from

Kelly Cable's pumpkin spice soap: her lard, coconut, olive, shea and castor proportions, with high-oleic sunflower oil in place of her sweet almond oil and a 5 % superfat rather than her 10 % lye discount. The water is set at a 30 % lye solution so the lye you mix stays near 34 % once the pumpkin's water is counted.

Formulation adapted from The Natural Soap Making Book for Beginners by Kelly Cable (Althea Press, 2017). The method and notes are ours.

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