Cucumber Soap Recipe (2024)

This cooling creamy palm free cucumber soap recipe is naturally colored with powerful French green clay and is perfect for those with overheated, itchy, or sweaty skin!

This cold process cucumber soap is a palm-free alternativeto my original Cucumber Borage Soap.

When creating this recipe, I started with my standard base of skin loving olive oil, plus a generous amount of coconut oil for great lather and hardness. (If you’re allergic to coconut, try using babassu oil instead.)

I then added some rice bran oil, since I’vereally been loving itin my soaps lately – it’s a nourishing oil, richin vitamin E, and makes a great stand-in for some of the olive oil in a recipe.

Avocado oil containsessential fatty acids, whileshea butter adds moisturizing properties and a bit of extra firmness that’s often needed inpalm-free recipes. If you don’t have shea butter, or are allergic, try using mango or avocado butter instead.

French green clay adds a pale green color and combines with cucumber pureeto make this bar extra soothing, and great at calming itchy or inflamed skin.

I used the lye calculator at Bramble Berry to determine lye amount for a6% superfat. (Running it by my other favorite calculator at Majestic Mountain Sage though, it results in around a 7.5% superfat, so adjust to your preference.)

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For the majorityof soap recipes on this site (and in my ebook – Handmade Natural Soaps), I use a homemade wooden loaf mold(inner dimensions are 8″ x 3.5″ x 3.5″) or this silicone Crafter’s Choice loaf mold from Amazon.

If using silicone molds, reduce the liquid by around 1/2 ounce so soapwill firm up faster. You may also wish to add 1 teaspoon sodium lactate to the cooled lye solution to make the bar harder & unmold more easily.

You could also try using a sturdy shoe box or empty milk carton, lined with an inexpensive, unscented trash bag, to make a disposable mold.

You can buy lye (sodium hydroxide) on Amazon.

Superfat is 6%. All measurements are by weight. You need an accurate digital scale to make soap.

• 1/4 (2 or 3 oz) of a cucumber, unpeeled
• 9 oz (255 g) cool or chilled water
• 3.83 oz (108 g) lye (sodium hydroxide)
• 1/2 tbsp French green clay
• optional: 1 tsp sodium lactate
• 12 oz (340 g) olive oil
• 8 oz (227 g) coconut oil (*or babassu oil)
• 4 oz (113 g) rice bran oil
• 2 oz (57 g) avocado oil
• 2 oz (57 g) shea, mango or avocado butter

*Note: If using babassu oil instead of coconut oil, use 3.57 ounces (101 grams) of lye for a 6% superfat.

If you haven’t made soap before, read through my Soap Making 101 post before proceeding or check out my Handmade Natural Soaps eBook Collection:

Step 1:Puree the cucumber with around 2 ounces of the chilled water. Strain. Pour the fresh cucumber juice into aheat proof plastic or stainless steel pitcher or container and add enough water, until it weighs 9 ounces (255 g).

Step 2: Wearing safety goggles, gloves and long sleeves, weigh out the lye and pour it into the pitcher of cucumber juice and water. Stir well to make sure thelye is fully dissolved. It will heat up quickly and give off strong fumes that you should avoid breathing in directly. Stir the French green clay into the lye solution and mix well.

I like to do this step in my kitchen sink, in order to contain any spills or splashes. Set the solution aside in a safe place, out of the reach of children and pets, and let cool for about 30 to 40 minutes. The temperature should drop to around 100 to 110°F (38 to 43°C) during that time. (If using sodium lactate, add once the lye solution cools.)

Step 3: Weigh the coconut oil and sheabutter into a small saucepan or double boiler. Melt gently over low heat, keeping a close eye on it. Weigh the other oils into your soap making pot or container and then pour the melted oils into there too. The melted oils should bring the temperature up to around 90 to 100°F(32 to 38°C), though you don’t have to get too hung up on trying to make the temperatures match.

Step 4: Now, you’re ready to mix! Working carefully and still with gloves, goggles and long sleeves on, pour the lye solution into the oils. Stir by hand for around 30 seconds then begin mixing with an immersion (stick) blender. Do not use a hand mixer – you want a stick blender that looks like THIS.

Step 5: Blend for 5 to 10 seconds, then hand stir with the motor off for 20 to 30 seconds. Alternate until trace is reached. “Trace” means that your soap batter has gotten thick enough so that when you drizzle some of it across the surface of itself, it leaves an imprint or “tracing” before sinking back in.

Step 6:If you also want to add essential oil for scent, do so now.

Step 7: Pour the soap into the prepared mold and cover with a sheet of wax paper, then the mold’s top or a piece of cardboard. Insulate the mold with a towel or small quilt, but peek every so often to make sure that the soap isn’t overheating. It will darken in spots and take on a gel-like appearance at some points (that’s all normal as it goes through“gel phase”), but if you see a crack developing down the middle, it’s getting too hot and should be uncovered.

Step 8: Allow the soap to stay in the mold for at least 24 to 48 hours. Remove from the mold and slice into bars. This recipe yields around 8 bars of soap. Let the soap cure for at least 4 weeks before use.