I was inspired to make a soap for Earth Day this year! It has actually been a couple of months since I’ve made a batch of soap! I’ve been working on a new Bath Bomb and Bubble Bar book so I’ve been elbow deep in baking soda, citric acid and SLSA! It was fun to get back to soaping.

This soap is colored using earth-inspired greens and blues and uses a simple drop swirl design. Here’s what I did!

(Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.)

Earth Day Drop Swirl Cold Process Soap

  • Coconut Oil – 270 grams
  • Shea Butter – 180 grams
  • Olive Oil – 315 grams
  • Rice Bran Oil – 135 grams
  • Sodium Hydroxide – 126 grams
  • Water – 254 grams

Colorants

  • The Maniacal Pea (Mad Micas)
  • Key West Blue (Mad Micas)
  • Blue Tide (Mad Micas)
  • Charcoal (Bramble Berry)
  • Yellow Brazilian Clay (Bramble Berry)

Essential Oil Blend

Use your favorite slow-moving fragrance or essential oil blend. If you’re looking for a good place to get essential oils, I HIGHLY recommend Appalachian Valley Natural Products. I love their products and their shipping is super fast!

  • Peppermint EO – 10 grams
  • Cedarwood EO – 5 grams
  • Spearmint EO – 5 grams
  • Orange EO – 15 grams

Let’s make soap! If you are new to soapmaking, be sure to download our free guide, How to Make Cold Process Soap! Gear up in your gloves and your safety glasses.

Step 1: Make your lye solution. Weigh the water and lye into separate containers. Pour the lye into the water while stirring. Be sure to mix your lye solution in a well-ventilated area. Set aside to cool down.

Step 2: Weigh the hard oils/butters and melt, just until melted.

Step 3: Add the liquid oils to the melted hard oils/butters. Add the essential oil to the base oils.

Now, you should have your lye solution and base oils ready to go.

Step 4: Once the lye solution and oils have both cooled down to about 90-100 degrees F, pour the lye solution into your oils and mix to emulsion.

Step 5: Pour about 4 oz. of soap into five containers for coloring.

Step 6: Add one color to each cup and mix well using a mini mixer. I added some titanium dioxide to my base to color it white.

Step 7: Pour the base into your mold.

Step 8: Rotate through each colored soap three times, pouring into your base.

Step 9: Swirl the top of the soap, if you want!

Step 10: Allow the soap to saponify for 24 hours. Once hard, remove from the mold, cut and cure for 4-6 weeks.

Earth Day Contest WINNERS!

We had a fun contest for Earth Day in both of our groups, Saponification Nation and Bath Fizz and Foam. If you’re not members, please join us!

A big THANK YOU to Mad Micas for sponsoring each contest and providing a gift certificate for each winner. If you’re not familiar with Mad Micas, they are one of my favorite mica and colorant supplier! Check out their website. One thing they recently added is a huge collection of sample sizes of every mica that is soap stable! If you’re wanting to get started using mica, this is a great set to try.

Here are our winners of the Earth Day Soap and Bath Bomb Contest!

Pink Beach – Charcoal, Rose Clay, & Shea butter soap.
Inspired by the real Pink Beach at Northern Samar Philippines. by Elleroche Resurreccion
My Earth, as seen from the Moon, soap. I was inspired by the famous Blue Marble photo taken by crew of Apollo 17 as well as the Earthrise photo. by Dena Mehling
This is my Earth + Moon soap. by Stacey Seal
Bath bombs by Shelley Griffiths

A big THANK YOU to everyone who entered! Great job!

Happy Soaping! -Amanda Aaron