Rose Clay & Charcoal Goats Milk Soap Tutorial
Rose Clay and Activated Charcoal are great soap ingredients for several reasons. They have great purifying qualities and introduce beautiful natural coloring to your melt and pour soap.
Rose Kaolin Clay is a very beautiful clay that adds a dusty rosy pink color and gentle exfoliation. Clay can be added to Melt & Pour Soap up to 1 tablespoon per pound. The easiest way to add Clay to your Soap is to mix it with a small amount of rubbing alcohol prior to adding it to your Soap Base. Creating a smooth liquid with the clay and rubbing alcohol will help keep the clay from clumping when you add it to the Soap; the rubbing alcohol will evaporate out.
Activated Charcoal has so many cleansing and purifying properties. With charcoal, a little goes a long way. (If you’re using a white or creamy opaque soap base – don’t attempt to make black soap. You will use so much charcoal that you’ll have gray bubbles. For black or dark colored soap, use a clear soap base.)
For a great skin nourishing soap, I used goats milk soap base. Goat milk contains a certain fatty acid that helps skin prevent the moisture loss. If you want to receive all the benefits of goat milk in melt and pour soap, Goat Milk Melt and Pour Base is your best bet. I used violet and jasmine fragrance oils to add a wonderful floral scent to this soap.
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Tools & Equipment You Will Need
- Digital Scale
- Cutting Board & Soap Cutter (or knife)
- 2 Pyrex bowls: 1 large, 1 small
- Rubber Spatula
- Measuring spoons
- Mini Mixer
- 2 Very small bowls
- Silicone Heart Column Mold
- Small 4″ Silicone Loaf Mold
- Spray bottle with Rubbing Alcohol
Ingredients You Will Need
- 1.5 lb Goatsmilk Melt and Pour Soap Base
- 1/2 tsp Activated Charcoal
- 2 tsp Rose Kaolin Clay
- 1/2 Tbsp Violet Fragrance Oil
- 1/2 Tbsp Jasmine Fragrance Oil
- Rubbing Alcohol
How to Make Rose Clay & Activated Charcoal Soap with a Heart Design
Start by cutting up your goats milk soap base into small cubes. I have learned that keeping the cubes small and evenly sized will help make the melting process go a little more smoothly – pun intended! When you have all the soap base all cubed, divide the base. Weigh out about 6 oz of soap base using your scale and put that in the smaller bowl. Put the remaining 18 oz in the larger bowl.
Creating the charcoal heart embeds
Use a very small bowl ( think condiment dish or ramekin sized) and measure out 1/2 teaspoon of activated charcoal into the dish. Add rubbing alcohol until it’s well hydrated and easy to mix (up to 1 Tablespoon). Using the mini mixer, carefully blend the charcoal to break up any clumps and get a smooth liquid consistency. Set that aside.
Put the small soap portion in the microwave for intervals of 30 seconds and stirring in between. This will allow the soap to melt evenly without scorching. The goal is to get a nice smooth melted soap base without over heating. Once the base is melted, add the charcoal liquid and incorporate it as much as you like (mix very little for a swirl affect, or thoroughly for a solid color).
Pour your charcoal soap into the silicone column mold and prop it up to cool and harden, undisturbed. After it has completely hardened, carefully unmold your heart column and cut away any excess soap to get a nice heart shaped column. Then cut it into three 4″ long sections.
Making the rose clay soap
Prepare the rose clay just as you did the charcoal. In another very small bowl (or clean the one you just used) add 2 teaspoons of rose clay and up to 1.5 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol. Blend well using the mini mixer.
You can prepare your fragrance oils ahead of time also. In a small stainless, ceramic, or glass (not plastic) dish or shot glass measure out a half Tablespoon of violet fragrance oil and also a half Tablespoon of jasmine fragrance oil.
Carefully heat up the 18 oz portion of soap base in the microwave, stirring between 30 second intervals. When the soap base is fully melted, you can add the rose clay and the fragrance oil and mix the soap base very well.
Continue mixing as long as possible to allow the soap base to cool. 
You want the base to be nearly gloopy and cool enough so that when you add your charcoal heart embeds, the rose soap doesn’t melt the embeds.
Pour a portion of your rose soap into your 4″ silicone loaf mold. Add one of your embeds. Spray with rubbing alcohol and then pour some more soap -very slowly- on top of your embed. Continue layering ending with pouring the last bit of rose clay on top. I had a bit of trouble with one of my embeds trying to float to the top so I kept pressing it down until the soap was cool enough that the embed stayed put.
The cut
Once the entire loaf has completely cooled and hardened, you can carefully unmold it. Slice up your loaf into bars – I did four 1″ bars. The slice will reveal your 3 gray hearts within your pink soap! Love it!
