Celebrate spring with a Dandelion Soap made from the whole plant! This all-natural cold-processed soap recipe makes a beautiful bar loaded with blossoms, leaves, and roots of herbalists and foragers favorite "weeds"!
Place the dandelion flowers in a quart-sized jar and cover them with at least 16 ounces of sunflower oil.
Cover and allow to sit in a warm, sunny spot for several weeks.
Strain out the blossoms through a piece of cheesecloth, squeezing the oil out of the saturated blossoms.
Dandelion Tea
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil.
Pour the water over the dandelion and allow it to steep, cooling to room temperature.
Strain the dandelion from the water, squeezing the water out of the plant.
Freeze in ice cube trays.
Dandelion Soap
Weigh out the solid fats (purified tallow and coconut oil) into a large glass or stainless steel bowl that can fit over a small saucepan to create a double boiler. Fill the saucepan with water and bring it to a boil. Set the bowl with the tallow & coconut oil over the saucepan until they are melted.
Meanwhile, weigh the dandelion tea ice cubes into a large glass bowl or plastic container.
Weigh the lye into a small glass bowl.Wearing your safety glasses, slowly stir the lye into the ice cubes until they are fully melted and all of the lye is dissolved.
Weigh out the Dandelion Infused Sunflower Oil and stir it into the melted tallow and coconut oil.
If you didn't already, now is a great time to measure out your essential oils, colorants, and herbal additions so they're all ready to go when you need them. Set them aside.
Check the temperature of the oil mixture and the lye solution to make sure they've cooled enough so that when mixed together the temperatures will average about 90-100 degrees F.
Slowly stir the mixed oils into the lye solution and stir with a silicone spatula until the oils are incorporated and not streaky on top. While you are stirring, take a reading of the temperature so you can get a baseline. (You can know that your mixture has begun to saponify when the temperature starts rising. I like to see it go up 2-3 degrees. This is the best way to confirm you do not have a "false trace.")
Using an immersion blender, thoroughly blend the mixture until you reach a thin trace and the temperature begins to rise. Set the thermometer aside.
Stir essential oils with the spatula until they are fully incorporated and then give it another pulse for about 30 seconds with the immersion blender.
Pour half of the batter into a separate bowl. (The one you used to melt the oils will be sitting right there and work fine.)
In one half of the batter, mix in the liquid chlorophyll and powdered dandelion leaf.
In the other half, mix in your yellow Brazilian clay and dandelion petals.
Pour the green batter into your prepared mold.
Using a mesh strainer dust the top with a very thin layer of powdered dandelion root. (Do not use too thick of a layer or the top can separate from the bottom later.)
Spoon the yellow batter into the mold, on top of the dandelion root powder.
Swirl or decorate your tops, if desired.
Cover with plastic wrap or waxed paper and set aside to harden for about 48 hours.
Remove the soap from the mold and cut into bars if you used a loaf mold. (If the soap seems soft or tacky, it may need to sit another day or so before removing from the mold.)
Allow the soap to cure in a dark place for at least 4 weeks, but preferably for 8 weeks. (This will ensure your bars are fully-cured and will be hard enough to last a while. The dark will help keep the natural colorants from fading.)
Notes
If you choose to use fresh flowers for the infused oil, be sure to make soap with it soon, because the high moisture content of fresh flowers will cause it to spoil.
Dry, cut dandelion leaf can be powdered in a blender or spice grinder.