Wild Violet Soap is a fun way for a soap maker to celebrate the return of spring! An all-natural, cold-processed soap recipe, it is made with violet infused herbal tea, moisturizing violet infused sweet almond oil and tinted with natural colorants.
Add a handful of violet petals, and leaves if desired, to a pint sized mason jar.
Cover the violets with about 8 ounces of sweet almond oil.
Set the jar in a cool and dark place 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 violets from the oil.
Violet Herbal Tea
Bring 2 1/2-3 cups of water to a boil.
Add the violets and remove from heat.
After it has cooled to room temperature, strain the herbs from the tea.
Freeze the tea into ice cubes, if desired.
Violet Soap
Weigh out the solid fats (purified tallow and coconut oil) into a large glass 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 violet 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 Violet Infused Sweet Almond Oil and stir it into the melted tallow and coconut oil blend.
Measure out your essential oils and colorants into separate containers and 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 90-110 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. (See notes above.)
With an immersion blender, blend the mixture thoroughly 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.
Swirling Soap Batter
To color the soap divide the batter.
Measure 6 ounces soap batter into a bowl (reusing one of the oil bowls is ok.)
Add the annatto oil (or sea buckthorn oil) and blend well.
Measure the remaining batter, about 20 ounces, into a separate bowl.
Add the purple Brazilian clay and alkanet oil and blend well.
Fill the mold about 3/4 of the way with most of the violet colored batter.
From high, pour the yellow batter down the center. Gravity from the high pouring technique will drop the color towards the center.
Use a chopstick or the thermometer probe to swirl if you’d like.
Fill the mold the rest of the way with remaining violet batter.
If desired, wait until the batter has thickened enough to swirl the top with the back of a spoon.
Cover with plastic wrap and set the mold aside in a cool place until the soap has hardened enough to remove it from the mold.
Curing the Soap
Cut the soap into bars and allow them to sit for at least 4 weeks to cure. The longer the soap cures the harder the bars will become.