Natural Glycerin Soap Bar Recipe

I love how this glycerin soap bar recipe leaves the skin clean, refreshed, and moisturized. This glycerin soap recipe smells wonderful, contains no chemicals, and rinses easily.

What is Glycerin?

Vegetable glycerin, often referred to simply as glycerine, or glycerol is a clear, gel-like liquid made from palm oil, soybean oil, or coconut oil. Specifically, it is the variant made from these oils.

Interesting fact, glycerin is the starting material used in making dynamite. But, don’t worry; it is entirely safe as it is; it’s even safe to eat and is used to sweeten many foods.

Glycerin is odorless and is commonly used in cosmetics, hair care, and soaps. It is also used in food and pharmaceuticals.

How to Make Glycerin Soap

Making soap can be easy, especially if you use a melt and pour soap base. However, I prefer to make soap from scratch like I do in my homemade cold process soap, so I can customize it exactly how I want to, and so I know exactly what is in it.

Making glycerin soap or ‘clear soap’ requires a few extra steps than making a traditional soap bar.

These steps are not hard, but a bit time-consuming as you will have to wait a couple of hours in between each step to make sure the process is done correctly.

Be sure that you plan to make glycerin soap on a day you are going to be home so you can tend to it as needed.

Glycerin Soap Recipe

It is important to use a digital scale accurate to at least the nearest tenth when making soap. You can follow my recipe below, or if you decide to change it up at all, you can use a soap calculator like this one from brambleberry to calculate the measurements.

In addition, these bars will require a few extra ingredients than what is traditionally needed for soap. All soap bars, even my turmeric soap bars, require fat, lye, and water. To make clear soap like this one, you will also need alcohol, glycerin, and sugar.

Just like with cold process soap bars, you have the option of adding in essential oils to change the scent, coloring or adding dried flowers.

Homemade Glycerin Soap Ingredients

Fats and Oils

• 8 ounces coconut oil
• 4 ounces castor oil
• 2 ounces shea butter
• 2 ounces jojoba oil

Lye and Water

• 2.1 ounces lye
• 4 ounces water

Additional Ingredients

• 6 ounces alcohol (like vodka or other high-proof alcohol)
• 3 ounces glycerin
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 30-50 drops essential oils (optional)

Step By Step Soap Making Instructions (With Pictures)

Once you have all of your ingredients and supplies on hand, we are now ready to make soap!

Step 1: Mixing water and lye

Using your digital scale, measure out the appropriate amounts of water and lye in separate containers.

Slowly add the lye to the water in a heat-resistant container. Warning: it will heat up rapidly. Gently stir until it is well dissolved.

If possible, it would be best to do this step outside or at least in a well-ventilated area. Wear safety goggles, rubber gloves and long sleeves when working with lye.

Set aside to allow it to cool slightly.

Step 2: Melt your oils

Melt the oils and fats in a crockpot or saucepan on low heat until completely dissolved.

Remove from heat to allow the ingredients to cool down to 100°F before continuing. An instant meat thermometer works just fine for this step.

Step 3: Mix oils and lye water

As soon as the oils cool, pour the lye water mixture into the oils and mix together with an immersion blender until it comes to trace. Test the trace by holding the blender above the mixture, letting it drip off the blender; if it pools up on top, its at the correct trace.

Step 4: Heat

At this point, you can transfer your soap to a crockpot if you were using a saucepan.

I choose to mix my lye and oils in a deeper dish than my crockpot to avoid splashing; if you are making a small batch of soap or have a deep crockpot, then this can all be done in the crockpot.

Cover your crockpot with plastic wrap and turn it on warm for about 2 hours. My crockpot gets too hot on the low setting, so I found it best to use the warm setting.

Step 5: Add alcohol and glycerin

Using the digital scale again, measure out the alcohol and glycerin. Pour them into the crockpot and stir using the immersion blender until smooth.

Be sure to use high-proof alcohol such as vodka. I used sky vodka’s 80 proof and it worked well. Do not use rubbing alcohol since it is a much higher proof and will leave your soap smelling like alcohol.

It is important to note alcohol has an extremely low flashpoint. So using a crockpot is generally pretty safe, but do be careful on this step.

Step 6: Sit and heat

Allow the soap to sit in the crockpot on warm for another 2 hours. For this part, leave the crockpot uncovered.

Step 7: Adding the sugar water

While the soap is warming in the crockpot, prepare the sugar and water by dissolving 1/4 cup of sugar in 1/2 cup of water.

After the 2 hours have elapsed, shut off the crockpot, and stir in the sugar water mixture.

Step 8: Essential oils (optional)

If using essential oils, add them in now. This is also the time to add in any coloring if desired.

My favorite essential oils to use in soap are floral, woodsy, and citrus essential oils. You can use a single oil or make a blend by using several different oils.

Step 9: Pour into molds

Step 10: Cure

Allow the soap to set and harden in the molds before popping them out. This can take 2-3 days, depending on the size mold you use.

Once the soap bars are popped out, they will need to cure in a cool dark place for several weeks before using them.

Glycerin Soap FAQs

I hope you enjoyed this simple recipe. If you made it, be sure to leave a comment below letting me know how it turned out.

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If you tried this Homemade Glycerin Soap Tutorial or any other tutorial on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!