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Traditional

Laurel-free olive bar

Pale cream olive soap bars beside a small dish of olive oil, a few whole cloves and a sprig of lavender on a purple backdrop

Olive oil with just enough coconut to lather, scented with spike lavender and a touch of clove in place of the bay that laurel oil would bring. A mild, pale relative of the laurel soaps of Hatay and Aleppo, made without the laurel.

Skill
Beginner
Method
Cold process
Batch
1000 g of oils about 1443 g of batter
Hands-on
1 hour
Cure
8 weeks
Gel phase
Yes insulate the mould
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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 · 85.0 % 850 g 29.98 oz
Coconut Oil · 15.0 % 150 g 5.29 oz
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) · the lye, 100 % pure 135.4 g 4.78 oz
Distilled water · for a 33 % lye solution 269.7 g 9.51 oz
Sodium lactate (60 % solution) · 2 tsp, stirred into the lye solution once it has cooled a little; helps this soft, olive-rich loaf set and leave the mould 13.1 g 0.46 oz
Spike lavender essential oil · 2.0 % of the oils, at trace 20 g 0.71 oz
Clove leaf essential oil · 0.5 % of the oils, at trace 5 g 0.18 oz
Superfat
5 %
Temperatures
Oils and lye solution each at 32 to 40 °C (90 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 the loaf mould and set it on a level surface where it can stay for three days.

  2. Weigh the oils and the scent

    Weigh 150 g coconut oil into the soaping pot and 850 g olive oil into a jug. Weigh 20 g spike lavender and 5 g clove leaf essential oil into a small glass.

  3. Make the lye solution

    Weigh 269.7 g distilled water into a heat-safe jug and 135.4 g sodium hydroxide into a dry container; the sodium lactate brings the rest of the recipe's water. At the open window or under the fan, pour the lye slowly into the water, never the water onto the lye, and stir until clear.

  4. Add the sodium lactate

    After a few minutes, when the solution has stopped steaming, stir in 2 tsp (13.1 g) sodium lactate. Leave it to cool, labelled and out of reach.

  5. Melt and combine the oils

    Melt the coconut oil on low heat, then pour in the olive oil.

  6. Check the temperatures

    Go ahead when the oils and the lye solution are both between 32 and 40 °C (90 and 104 °F).

  7. Blend patiently to light trace

    Pour the lye solution into the oils down the shaft of the stick blender and pulse for a few seconds at a time, stirring between bursts. With this much olive oil the batter is slow, often ten minutes or more; stop when a drizzle leaves a faint line on the surface.

  8. Add the scent

    Stir in the spike lavender and clove leaf by hand with the spatula until even. Clove can thicken batter a little, so pour straight after.

  9. Pour and insulate

    Pour into the mould, tap it on the worktop to raise air bubbles, cover it with a board and wrap it in a towel for a day. The warmth takes it through gel, which helps a soft, high-olive loaf firm up.

  10. Give it time in the mould

    Leave the loaf in the mould for two days, or three if it still dents under a pressed finger; soap this rich in olive oil starts soft.

  11. Unmould and cut

    Unmould it with gloves on and cut it into bars about 2.5 cm (1 in) thick, then wipe the pot and tools into the bin with paper towels and wash them.

  12. Cure for eight weeks

    Stand the bars on edge in a cool, dry, airy room and turn them every week or so. At eight weeks they are firm and mild, and like any olive-rich soap they keep improving for months.

Tips

  • For the real laurel soap, with laurel berry oil, see our Aleppo-style laurel and olive bar. For more olive oil and less coconut, see our Greek olive bar; for a high-olive bar with castor oil for a creamier lather, our high-olive bastile bar.
  • Bay leaf essential oil carries methyl eugenol, and the IFRA limit allows it at only about 0.05 % of a soap, too little to smell. Spike lavender's fresh, camphor-like note with a touch of clove's warm spice comes close to the smell of a bay leaf.
  • The sodium lactate, 1.3 % of the oils, helps this soft, olive-rich loaf firm up and leave the mould cleanly. Leave it out if you have none and give the loaf an extra day in the mould.
  • Spike lavender and clove leaf bring fragrance allergens, linalool and eugenol among them, that must be named on the label if you sell the soap. Leave both out for an unscented bar; the lye does not change.

Why make it

Eighty-five parts olive oil to fifteen of coconut makes a mild, conditioning bar, cleansing 10 and conditioning 71 on our scale, with more lather than castile and a gentler wash than an everyday olive, coconut and palm bar. It is a plain cousin of Hatay laurel soap, the olive and laurel berry soap of southern Turkey, registered as a Turkish geographical indication in 2017. Laurel oil gives those bars their green colour and their smell of bay; leaving it out makes this bar cheaper and paler, and an option for people who react to bay. The reputation of olive soaps for mildness rests on long tradition and on their low cleansing, not on trials. The spike lavender and clove are there for their smell alone, and like any olive-rich bar it wants two to three months' cure.

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 2.9 %
  • Palmitic acid 13.0 %
  • Stearic acid 2.8 %
  • Oleic acid 59.8 %
  • Linoleic acid 10.7 %
  • Other 4.4 %

Saturated : unsaturated 28 : 72

Hardness 26 below 29–54
Cleansing 10 below 12–22
Conditioning 71 above 44–69
Bubbly lather 10 below 14–46
Creamy lather 16 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

1 variations

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

From the guides

All guides
Beginner 8 min read

Castile soap: pure olive oil, and why it's worth the wait

What castile soap really is, why pure olive oil traces slowly and starts soft and slippery, how long to cure it, and a recipe with the calculator's numbers.
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.
Intermediate 10 min read

Aleppo soap and laurel berry oil

What Aleppo soap is, how the cauldron process differs from cold process at home, what laurel berry oil brings and why its SAP sits low, with recipes.

Where these proportions come from

Our own construction: an olive bar with coconut for lather, a plainer relative of the laurel soaps of Hatay in southern Turkey, whose registered method is olive oil with about a fifth laurel berry oil, made here without the laurel, at a 5 % superfat in a 33 % lye solution. Spike lavender and clove leaf stand in for the bay smell that laurel oil gives, since bay leaf essential oil is limited to a trace in soap.

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