Avocado and Green Tea Soap for Men

This soap was made just for men, an Avocado and Green Tea Soap.

It has been a while since I made a soap with a more masculine fragrance. It was my intention to make a men’s soap in time for Father’s Day but alas, things did not happen as planned.

For this soap, I chose to include the rich and creamy avocado, or Zaboca, as we Trinis call it, for the wonderful benefits it provides. Avocado is naturally high in omega 3 fatty acids, vitamins C and E as well as the antioxidants beta-carotene and lycopene.

The key to using avocado in soap is to ensure that it is thoroughly pulverized and that there are no chunks remaining in the final soap as this can cause mold to develop.

As you will see with my finished soap, avocado soaps also tend to turn dark as the natural sugars they contain heat up during saponification and cause the soap to go through gel phase. If you want to lessen this effect, you can put the mold in the refrigerator or freezer after pouring the soap.

Green tea is known for being beneficial to skin in that it has anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties. I also added for its cooling astringent effect that helps to soothe skin. Regular readers of my blog would know that I love adding the contents of the teabag for gentle exfoliation.

My Sea Clay and activated Charcoal soap is also a favourite with the guys who have tried it, so I really wanted to include clay in this soap as well. I decided to go with Bentonite Clay as it adds nice slip and helps to absorb oils.

As usual, I included enriching cocoa and shea butter for their conditioning and moisturizing properties.

The fragrance oil I chose is the Drakkar (Type) by Bramble Berry. This fragrance was inspired by the Drakkar Noir cologne and is very spicy and masculine. The fragrance oil does tend to darken cold process soap and supposedly causes ricing. The ricing has not been my experience though when I have used it in the past, so I continue using it. Feel free to seek out your own masculine fragrance oil or essential oil blend.

Also, note that the distilled water in this recipe was discounted slightly and divided into 4 ounces boiling water to steep the green tea leaves and 6 ounces to dissolve the sodium hydroxide.

For a simple swirl, I opted to use spirulina in half of the traced soap batter, but this is totally optional.

If you have never made soap before, please read my post on Soapmaking for Beginners.

Ingredients

• 8 oz Coconut oil
• 8 oz Palm oil
• 6 oz Canola oil
• 2 oz Castor oil
• 2 oz Cocoa Butter
• 2 oz Shea Butter
• 1 oz Grapeseed oil
• 4.1 oz Sodium Hydroxide
• 4 oz boiling hot distilled water (to steep tea)
• 6 oz room temperature distilled water (to make lye solution)
• 1 oz Fragrance or essential oil
• 4 oz mashed avocado
• 4 teabags of Green tea
• 0.35 oz Bentonite clay
• 1 tsp Spirulina (optional)

Directions to Make Avocado and Green Tea Soap

Safety first!

Suit up with long sleeves, safety goggles and gloves before working with sodium hydroxide. Ensure that you will not be disturbed during the soapmaking period and that no children or pets are in your production area. Also do not use any aluminum as lye reacts with it.

Prepare The Lye Solution and Green Tea

First we need to prepare the lye solution and steeped green tea to give them enough time to cool off while we go through the other steps.

Weigh 4 oz of boiling hot distilled water in a teacup and add two tea bags.

Next, weigh 6 oz of distilled water in a heat-proof container.

Weigh the sodium hydroxide.

Add the sodium hydroxide to the water and not the other way around, as this may cause an eruption. Using a stainless steel spoon, dissolve the lye completely. The solution will become very hot and give off fumes so do this in a well-ventilated area and ensure that you do not inhale the fumes.

Set aside the tea and the lye solution in a safe place to cool to room temperature.

Prepare Oils and Butters

Next, weigh the shea and cocoa butters.

Melt the butters completely in the microwave or a double boiler. Do not overheat, just apply enough heat to allow them to melt.

Next weigh the individual oils and add them to the mixing bowl.

Then add the melted butters to the oils.

Prepare The Additives

Weigh your fragrance oil in a glass container as fragrance and essential oils tend to degrade plastic.

Weigh 4 ounces of avocado. You can puree it or mash it well with a fork if you do not have a food processor.

Measure your bentonite clay and spirulina, then remove the contents of two green tea bags and set it aside with the other additives.

Let’s Make Soap

Now we are ready to put it all together to make this wonderful homemade Avocado and Green Tea Men’s soap.

To the mixing bowl with the oils and butters, add the avocado puree and the bentonite clay.

Using the immersion blender, blend until the clay and avocado are thoroughly mixed in. Ensure that there are no chunks of avocado in the mixture.

Next add the tea and the tea leaves.

Mix it again with the immersion blender just until everything is well-dispersed.

Next, carefully add the sodium hydroxide to the mixture and using a combination of blending and stirring, bring the emulsion to trace.

Once a light trace is achieved, add the fragrance oil and blend again just enough to mix it completely.

This part is optional so from here you can put it into the mold if you wish, but I went ahead and separated the batter into two and added the spirulina powder to half of it then blended it in with the immersion blender.

The batter was then alternatively poured into my 10″ Nurture Soap silicone mold.

Next, I used a skewer to swirl the soap.

Once the soap is in the mold, put it aside in an area where it will not be disturbed to allow it to set for 24 hours. As mentioned before, if you do not want the soap to darken when going through gel phase, you can put it in the fridge or freezer. I opted to let it gel.

After 24 hours, once the soap is firm, remove it from the mold. If not, leave it for another day or so before taking it out.

Remove the soap from the mold and cut it into bars. Allow the soap to cure for 4 to 6 weeks before giving it to the special men in your life.

Random note: I totally had The Weather Girls, It’s Raining Men playing while I made this soap!

Happy Soaping! 🙂

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