26 September 2022 / Laura Garvin Gomez
How to Make Salted Caramel Scented Soap for Halloween
These sweet little soaps will keep you feeling spooky all year long.
Halloween is the season for crafting, eating treats, and enjoying all of the creativity that comes with it.
This salted caramel soap is perfect for making with kids to distract from the trick-or-treat sweet eating, or to hand out as little favours during this year's Halloween party.
Made with glitter and black pigment, these Halloween soap recipes are a great way to make bath time fun and creative for you and your family alike.
Remember that soap takes about a month to cure, so be sure to start this process well before the date passes you by (unless you like Halloween to be all year round - which we completely understand).
Before you start:
This recipe won’t include a list of equipment and the instructions may not be minutely detailed at every stage.
That’s because you can find all of this information by heading over to this article: A beginner’s guide to making soap using essential oils.
We recommend having it open as you work through this recipe, especially if you are fairly new to soap-making. You should also pay attention to all the relevant safety information contained in the article.
Ingredients:
- 63g sodium hydroxide
- 110g distilled water
- 114g coconut oil (refined)
- 91g shea butter
- 227g olive oil
- 23g castor oil
- ¼ tsp black iron oxide powder
- 15g Salted Caramel Fine Fragrance Oil
Optional decoration:
- Red biodegradable cosmetic glitter
- Instead of making square soap bars, you may want to try using a soap mould that shapes the soap into spiders or pumpkins.
Can I use essential oils to make this soap?
If you want your soap to contain the natural benefits found in essential oils, then you are free to swap the salted caramel fragrance oil with one or more essential oils.
However, doing so may make it more difficult to get that same indulgent sweet scent that salted caramel has - so be wary!
It's also important to bear in mind that, while essential oils make great natural bases, they may not last as long or be as easy to work with as fragrance oils.
What is black iron oxide pigment?
Black iron oxide pigment is a natural colourant that it’s quite easy to source from online retailers.
It gives the bars of soap their spooky Halloween vibe to compliment the glitter, but it isn’t an essential part of this recipe.
You can feel free to swap it out for a colourant of your choice, or leave it out altogether and let your soap bars remain a neutral colour.
Method:
- Measure your coconut oil and shea butter into a pan and your olive oil and castor oil into a jug.
- Pour the distilled water into a heat-proof jug.
- Dissolve the sodium hydroxide crystals into the jug of water. *Please refer to our soap-making guide for instructions on how to do this safely.*
- Melt the coconut oil and shea butter in a pan on a very low heat. When both have melted, remove the pan from the heat and set down on a heat-proof surface.
- Pour the olive and castor oil into a pan with the melted coconut oil and shea butter.
- Measure the temperature of the mixed oils and lye solution – both should be around 35-38 degrees Celsius.
- Pour the lye water through a sieve into the pan of oils.
- Stir the solution together. Then hold the stick blender to the bottom of the pan and blitz for a couple of seconds. Turn off, stir, and repeat until the mixture thickens to ‘trace’. At this stage it should have a thin, custard-like consistency.
- Add the black colourant, salted caramel fragrance oil and a heaped scoop of red glitter, and fully mix in using a spatula.
- Either pour your solution into a separate square mould, or pour into the soap mould of your choice.
- Leave the soap in its mould for 48 hours before cutting into bars. You should then leave the soap to cure in a cool, dry place for 28 days.
- Package up as gifts and give away – or keep for yourself!
Shop our fragrance oil range here.
