It has become a tradition now to make a gingerbread house soap every Christmas. I wanted to try something different to my previous attempts (the gingerbread embeds, the giant gingerbread house, and the full bar gingerbread house). So, I went with a gingerbread village instead!
This soap is also my collaboration to the Christmas Soaps Collab that I helped organize. In the event I decide to set up another one, feel free to contact me for details or fill this out.
The idea of the collaboration was to make a soap inspired in Christmas food or drinks, either by using that as the theme for the design, or by actually incorporation that food or drink in the soap. Because my soap was going to be used for display mostly, I decided to use food as the inspiration only.
Here are the supplies used:
My affiliate links:
Several of the links above/below are affiliate links, as the ones below. If you buy from them, it will not cost you any more, and I would get a tiny commission on it. As amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Colorants:
- Gold Dust Enviroglitter
- Super Sparkles Enviroglitter
- 1/2 tsp of Winter White Mica
- Pink Neon mica (1/8 tsp or 1/4)
- Fluorescent Neon Purple from Nurture Soap (1/8 tsp or 1/4)
- Green mica or fluorescent green (1/8 tsp or 1/4)
Mold:
Fragrance:
- Gingerbread man FO
- Vanilla stabilizer (half the amount of FO)
Embeds
Soap dough (red, white, brown, green, white, and multicolors)
The below videos can give you an idea of how I made the embeds:
- Gingerbread house: You can follow this video to make a house “cane” and then slice the house front and decorate it.
- Candy canes
- Lollipop candy
- Pine trees
Equipment
Safety Equipment:
- Nitrile gloves
- Facial Shield (I use either a facial shield or the goggles below)
- Safety Goggles
- Respirator (I use this when mixing the lye, I mix the lye in the window sill, window opened, with a pedestal fan blowing the fumes away, better yet, freeze your distilled water prior) I also try to wear long sleeves, pants and closed shoes. In my personal experience, most of my near misses (when I feel my skin itching or a slight burning sensation), or when I come contact with the soap batter, have happened when I am wiping down the containers, when I am almost done.
Recipe Totals
Please note that this recipe has a low superfat* percentage and a considerable water discount*. (I like a cleansing, bubbly bar) If you are a beginner, a recipe like this one might be better. I am also using a dual lye blend. If you only want to use sodium hydroxide, you will need to run this through a lye calculator, I like soapmakingfriend.com
I had enough leftover for another bar of soap (I poured separately in individual cavity mold)
Recipe Totals
| Liquid Required | 4.39 oz | 124.33 g |
| NaOH Weight | 2.8 oz | 79.32 g |
| KOH Weight | 0.13 oz | 3.56 g at 90% Purity |
| Lye Weight | 2.92 oz | 82.88 g |
| Oil Weight | 20 oz | 566.99 g |
| Fragrance Oil Weight | 1.25 oz | 35.44 g |
| Superfat | 3% | |
| Total Batch Weight | 28.57 oz | 809.92 g |
| Lye Concentration | 40% | |
| NaOH / KOH Ratio | 97.2% / 2.8% |
Recipe Oils, Fats and Waxes
| Oil | % | Ounces | Grams |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olive Oil | 30 | 6 | 170.1 |
| Tallow Beef | 30 | 6 | 170.1 |
| Coconut Oil, 76 deg | 25 | 5 | 141.75 |
| Castor Oil | 8 | 1.6 | 45.36 |
| Shea Butter | 7 | 1.4 | 39.69 |
| Total | 100 | 20 | 566.99 |
Custom Additives
| Add with the Fats | |
|---|---|
| Rosemary oleoresin | 0.01 ounce |
| Add at trace | |
| EDTA mixed with water | 0.28 ounce |
For more information on these additives you can click in the links below, please note above links are affiliate ones
- Rosemary oleresin (My oils already had this added when I masterbatched the oils)
- Tetrasodium EDTA
MAKING THE SOAP
- Normally I heat up some of my masterbatched oils, weigh what I need and set it apart.
- Then I measure the masterbatched lye needed. However, if you do not masterbatch the oils or lye, I detail it below:
- In a well ventilated area (outside or by a window), add the lye gradually to the distilled water. Do not breathe the fumes. You can freeze half of the water ahead to avoid fumes, and weigh the ice cubes. You need to wear your safety gear. Lye burns! You can prepare this several hours ahead, or even days ahead, keep it properly covered. (If making it the same day, loosely cover it to allow it to cool. Once at room temperature, use an airtight lid).a
- While you wait for the lye water to cool down, you can weigh and melt your oils. Weigh your fragrance oil or essential oils into a glass container or ceramic container (fragrance oils can dissolve thin plastics).
- Prepare your colorant. Mix it with 1 tbs of olive oil or another clear oil.
- When your oils and lye solution are at or below 105°F (37.77°C), put on your PPE (Personal protective equipment) again, and add your lye solution to the oils slowly, to avoid splatters pour it on the blender shaft. If your lye solution is cooler than this, is ok. As long as it not near freezing. (Room temperature is fine). If your oils go under 95° F, warm them up to lightly above 100° F
- Stir with the blender on Off position initially, then blend for 5-7 second periods, alternating with stirring for 10 seconds or longer, until it is emulsified. This takes about 30-50 seconds with this recipe. When a recipe reaches emulsion, everything has a uniform, lighter color than before, you do not see the darker oil swirls when blending. You could bring your soap to light trace instead, since the pour is fairly simple.
- Separate 8 oz of soap batter and divide it among the colorants (About 2 oz per color)
- Add the fragrance to the rest and stir thoroughly for about 30 seconds
- Pour the soap into the mold (s)
- Stir the neon and white colorants into the 2 oz of soap batter that each got, Yo can pour it when fluid or wait until it thickens up, like mine had. You can use a spoon or small spatula to spread it into the top of the soap.
- Add the embeds and all decorations and sprinke glitter on top.
- Cover the soap to help promote gel phase if desired.
- Wait 24-48 hours and remove from the mold when it peels easily from the sides.
- To cut the soap into bars I normally use a single bar cutter. I did not cut this soap though, as it will be mostly for display.
- Let the soap cure for at least 4 weeks in an open area protected from direct sunlight before using. (not touching any metal)
*SUPERFAT:
By now you probably know that lye (sodium hydroxide) converts oils into soap, through a process called saponification. And you probably also know that there are specific amounts needed of each for this to happen. Because each soap has a different SAPonification value, different amounts of lye are needed for each oil.
Superfatting sounds like something I like to do to myself when I keep eating after I feel full. But in the soap world, many will know it is when you either add more oils or less lye than it is required. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you need 3 oz of lye to convert 16 oz of manacao oil (totally made up oil) into soap. If you only use 2.5 oz of lye instead of 3, that means that a percentage of the manaco oil will not become soap, but will remain an oil. And this is desirable as that extra oil will cause the soap to become more gentle on your skin, by reducing its cleansing ability slightly. But if you use 4 oz of lye instead of 3, that means all 16 oz of manacao oil will become soap, and not only that, there will be extra lye floating around. That extra lye will be looking for more oil to convert to soap, that oil could be the natural skin oils, which means this soap can burn or irritate the skin.
Usually superfat of at least 3% is recommended as oils properties may change from crop to crop. But even if you had a 0% superfat soap, it would still be gentle as handmade soap creates glycerin, which is a skin humectant. (From most commercially produced soap, glycerin is removed to be sold separately).
*LYE CONCENTRATION / WATER DISCOUNT:
Most soap calculators will give you the amount of water needed to mix the lye with, based on traditional cooking methods of making soap, what we now know as hot process. This is a big percentage of water (38% of the oils) because a lot of it would evaporate through the cooking process. However, for cold process soap this is usually too much water, which can lead to a lot of soda ash or a lot of shrinkage during the cure.
This blogpost explains it better (from modern soapmaking).
Soaps by Glenda 