DIY bastille soap with yoghurt powder

Today is a very special post - this is exactly the 100th post on my blog!

To celebrate this I wanted to share with you an excellent recipe for a mild, skin nourishing soap with yoghurt powder. I have used my new soap moulds for this project for the first time and I just love how they turned out!

But first, you might be wondering what bastille soap is.

Castille soap is one traditionally made from 100% olive oil. Bastille is a term used by soap makers for soap that is almost made in 100% from olive oil, but with a low percentage addition of another oil or butter. Usually the other oil/butter is used in a 10-30% amount.

For this soap I have used 75% olive oil and 25% coconut oil. Olive oil is known to give a very mild soap, which is good for sensitive skin. I am personally not fond of 100% olive oil soap as for me it does not lather well enough. I like the idea of using 25% of coconut oil as it adds great lather to the soap. I additionally added to the soap yoghurt powder and zinc oxide. 

For centuries milk has been used in skin care products. Milk contains emollient fats and lactic acid. Lactic acid is an alpha hydroxy acid, which has the ability to penetrate skin. Yoghurt powder has the highest lactic acid contents of all milk products and is an excellent choice for soap making. 

Zinc oxide helps calm skin irritations. It also gives a nice, white color to the soap. 

Ingredients:

360 g olive oil

120 g coconut oil

66 g NaOH (lye)

120 g water 

1 1/2 Tbsp yoghurt powder

1 Tbsp zinc oxide

Fragrance and colorant of your choice (optional)

Preparation:

To make this soap follow the typical procedure for making cold processed soap

- weight of the coconut oil on a digital scale and melt in a pan

- once it is melted remove from the hot plate and add appropriate amount of olive oil and leave to stand for a few minutes

- in the mean time dissolve the lye in cold water and leave to cool down (remember to wear gloves, googles and long sleeves and to work in a well ventilated area!)

- to the oil mixture add the yoghurt powder and zinc oxide and mix well with a spoon so that there are no lumps

- wait till both the lye solution and the oil mixture reach more or less the same temperature, then slowly add the lye solution to the oil while mixing with a spoon

- mix with a spoon until the texture is smooth

- next carefully mix it with a blender stick until it reaches trace (a light custard-like structure)

- add any colorants or fragrances of your choice (for the soaps I was making I used either rose scented or honey scented fragrance because it matched the moulds I was using)

- pour the soap into prepared moulds (this amount made four soaps with my size of moulds) 

- leave the soap to stand in the moulds overnight or longer if they do not seem hard enough to you. You can also place the moulds for about 2-3 hours in the freezer, this will make removing the soap from its mould easier, without the risk of damaging the soap

- gently remove the soaps from their moulds and leave them to dry in a well ventilated area for several weeks 

- This soap should cure for atleast 6 weeks (as all soaps with a high contents of olive oil it requires a long curing time)

* This soap recipe is not my original recipe. It was inspired by a buttermilk bastille baby bar soap posted on Lovin' Soap Studio  

I will post a full review of this soap on my blog once its 6 weeks of curing are over.