Learn how to make an ultra-conditioning bar of all-natural Winter Spice Pine Soap to help moisturize your dry winter skin! With an amazing sweet-spicy evergreen scent it will be your new favorite seasonal bar!
Pack a quart jar full of pine needles and cover it with at least 15 ounces olive oil.
Set the jar in a sunny window for a few weeks to infuse OR place it in a saucepan of water and place it on warmer burner or in a slow cooker filled part way with water on the warm setting.
After a few hours to overnight, strain the pine needles from the olive oil.
Pine Needle Tea
Bring about 3 cups of water to a boil.
Add the pine needles and remove from heat.
After the tea has cooled to room temperature, strain out the pine needles.
Freeze the tea into ice cubes, if desired.
Pine Soap
Measure out the coconut oil into a quart mason jar and place it in a small saucepan of water.
Bring the water to a boil until the coconut oil melts then remove the jar from the heat.
Meanwhile, weigh the avocado oil, castor oil, and pine needle infused olive oil and pour them into a bowl.
Weigh out the sodium hydroxide (lye) into a small glass bowl or glass measuring cup. (Be sure to wear safety glasses and rubber gloves while working with lye!)
Weigh out the pine needle tea ice cubes into it's own large glass bowl.
Slowly sprinkle the sodium hydroxide (lye) over the ice cubes while stirring with a silicone spatula until the lye has fully dissolved. Set aside.
Pour the melted coconut oil into the other liquid oils and give them a little stir.
Weigh out the essential oils into a small container (not plastic.) Set aside.
Measure out the chlorella. Set aside.
Pour the oil mixture into the lye mixture and stir them together with the silicond spatula for a minute.
Take the temperature of the mixture.
Using an immersion blender mix the oils and lye together until they thicken and leave a raised, "trace" across the top of the mixture. If the temperature has risen about 3+ degrees, you can know for sure you've traced. You want this soap batter to be a little on the runnier side.
Stir in the essential oil blend and mix it in well with the immersion blender for another minute.
Pour about 10 ounces of the batter into another bowl. (I used the one the oils were in.)
Mix in the chlorella powder.
Pour about 4/5 of the white soap batter into your mold.
Using drop large spoonfuls of green batter from high above the mold into the white batter.
Use a chopstick or thermometer probe to swirl the soap a little. Insert it at about a 45-degree angle and simply draw circles moving towards the other side of the mold as you swirl.
Spread a thin layer of white batter over the top, followed by the remainder of the green batter.
After it sets up for about 15-20 minutes depending on the thickness of the batter, embellish the top, if desired.
Cover with plastic wrap and allow it to sit until the soap has hardened enough to remove it from the mold.
Cut the soap into bars and allow them to sit for 4-8 weeks to cure.
Notes
The longer you cure this soap the better. Because of the soft, liquid oils, I recommend curing for at least 8 weeks before using.