3 Fall Soap Recipes – Easy with herbal coloring - Simple Life Mom (2024)

September is a great month to start making these Fall Soap Recipes. After three to four weeks, they’ll be ready in time to use during October and November. They’re also great as holiday gifts for teachers, Fall get togethers, and Thanksgiving.

The past few years, I’ve shared a number of fun soap recipes for Autumn.

• 5 Fall Soap Recipes
• 5 More Fall Soap Recipes

This year, I was excited to come up with three MORE!

These wonderfully fun new Fall soap recipes are: Hot Chocolate, Cranberry Orange, and Vanilla Maple

If you need more help getting started with soap making, check out my Natural Soap Making Book for Beginners. It’s currently #1 in Soap Making on Amazon!

3 Fall Soap Recipes

Here are the Hot Chocolate, Cranberry Orange, and Vanilla Maple soap recipes. They all make 3lbs or 12 four ounce bars of soap. You can double or halve these recipes. I’ve done so with great success.

Fall Soap Ingredients

You can add color to these recipes as instructed to in the directions, or you can leave the coloring out. All coloring is 100% natural (I only use natural and healthy methods and ingredients), but the scents themselves make the soaps wonderful with or without the coloring.

I use essential oils for scents, never fragrance oils. You can learn more about why here.

I like to use one ounce of essential oils per two pounds of soap. I use a variety of brands. I really like the quality of Mountain Rose Herbs and Starwest Botanicals.

Hot Chocolate Soap Recipe

This hot chocolate soap recipe gets its scent from the cocoa butter and cocoa powder that is added to the recipe. You’ll make a chocolate base with a “marshmallow” or “creamy foam” white topping.

Feel free to add some peppermint essential oil (1/2 to 1 ounce) if you’d like a mint chocolate scent.

10% superfat, 3lbs or 12 four ounce bars

Ingredients:

• 10 ounces olive oil
• 9 ounces coconut oil
• 7 ounces cocoa butter
• 5 ounces castor oil
• 4 ounces shea butter
• 4. 4 ounces lye
• 12 ounces water
• 1-2 Tablespoons cocoa powder

Directions:

1. Combine olive oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter, castor oil, and shea butter in a large stainless steel pot and melt over medium heat. Remove from heat and allow to cool to 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Weigh lye into a plastic disposable bag. Weigh water in a plastic bowl. Go outside with ingredients and large spoon. Wearing gloves and charcoal mask and long sleeve shirt, add lye to water and stir until lye is dissolved. Allow to cool to 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Prepare 3lb mold by lining with wax paper if needed.
4. Pour lye water into pot of oils and stir with a hand mixer for 1-3 minutes. Repeat until soap begins to thicken to light trace (See: What is trace). If you are adding peppermint essential oil, now is the time. Stir well.
5. Separate 1 cup of soap into a separate bowl.
6. Add cocoa powder to larger batch 1 tablespoon at a time until you are happy with the color.
7. Pour cocoa soap into mold.
8. Slowly, using a spatula to slow the pour if necessary, pour white soap over the cocoa soap. This is easiest when the soap starts to thicken to medium or thick trace.
9. Cover and insulate for 24 hours (do not insulate if your house is above 80 degrees). Remove from mold and cut. Allow to cure for 3-6 weeks, until hard.

Below is the printable version of the recipe so you can easily keep it handy. Make this with friends!

Cranberry Orange Soap Recipe

I have tried straight up cranberries and cranberry juice in soap a few times. It does not stay a pretty pink/red color. It turns brown.

So this soap is more in the spirit of cranberries. You’ll add a little bit of cranberry juice, but you can leave it out if you want to. We’ll get the color another way (All natural of course). This is going to be a half pink, half orange soap bar. Very pretty. Feel free to give it a little swirl as well.

I have a few fun scent combinations for you to try. Which one sounds the best to you?

• orange and vanilla (smells lie a creamsicle)
• orange and geranium (floral made gentle with the citrus)
• orange and lime (sweet and tart like cranberries and oranges)

I’ve gone for orange and lime, but try half and half amounts of any of your favorites.

*Note: If you want a vegan recipe, use the bulk of the vanilla maple recipe below with these additives and instructions.

10% superfat, 3lbs or 12 four ounce bars

Ingredients:

• 9 ounces tallow (or lard)
• 8 ounces olive oil
• 8 ounces coconut oil
• 5 ounces avocado oil
• 5 ounces castor oil
• 4. 6 ounces lye
• 9 ounces water
• 4 ounces cranberry juice (pure, not co*cktail) If you don’t want to add the cranberry juice, add 4 more ounces of water to lye water.
• 1 tablespoon rose clay
• 1 tablespoon orange Moroccan clay
• 0.75 ounce sweet orange essential oil
• 0.5 ounce lime essential oil

Directions:

1. Combine tallow, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, and castor oil in a large stainless steel pot and melt over medium heat. Remove from heat and allow to cool to 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Weigh lye into a plastic disposable bag. Weigh water and in a plastic bowl. Go outside with ingredients and large spoon. Wearing gloves and charcoal mask and long sleeve shirt, add lye to water and stir until lye is dissolved. Allow to cool to 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Prepare 3lb mold by lining with wax paper if needed.
4. Pour lye water into pot of oils and stir with a hand mixer for 1-3 minutes. Repeat until soap begins to thicken to light to medium trace (See: What is trace).
5. Add essential oils of choice and cranberry juice and mix well.
6. Separate half of soap into a separate bowl.
7. Add rose clay to one half. Mix well.
8. Add orange Moroccan clay to the other half. Mix well.
9. Pour rose soap into mold. Carefully, using a spatula to break the pour if necessary, pour orange soap over the pink soap. Leave as two separate layers or insert a dowel rod or spatula and swirl.
10. Cover and insulate for 24 hours (do not insulate if your house is above 80 degrees). Remove from mold and cut. Allow to cure for 3-6 weeks, until hard.

Vanilla Maple Soap Recipe

Vanilla can be an any time of the year scent. in the summer it reminds me of vanilla sunscreen days. In the winter its a warm and comfortable home.

There is no such thing as a maple syrup essential oil. Since I do not want to use fragrance oils, I choose to add a warm scent to the vanilla: nutmeg. Nutmeg is a scent that is more subtle than cinnamon, and brings out the deeper notes of vanilla. It is a unique scent combined with the sweeter scent of the cocoa butter, which is why I call it vanilla maple.

You can find this soap in my shop if you want to check it out before making it.

*Note: Vanilla extract does not leave a scent in soap. You must use a vanilla oil.

5% superfat, 3lbs or 12 four ounce bars

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces coconut oil
• 6 ounces olive oil
• 5 ounces castor oil
• 5 ounces sweet almond oil
• 5 ounces shea butter
• 4 ounces cocoa butter
• 4. 6 ounces lye
• 12 ounces water
• 0.75 ounces vanilla oil
• 0.5 ounces nutmeg essential oil

Directions:

1. Combine coconut oil, olive oil, castor oil, sweet almond oil, shea butter, and cocoa butter in a large stainless steel pot and melt over medium heat. Remove from heat and allow to cool to 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Weigh lye into a plastic disposable bag. Weigh water and in a plastic bowl. Go outside with ingredients and large spoon. Wearing gloves and charcoal mask and long sleeve shirt, add lye to water and stir until lye is dissolved. Allow to cool to 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Prepare 3lb mold by lining with wax paper if needed.
4. Pour lye water into pot of oils and stir with a hand mixer for 1-3 minutes. Repeat until soap begins to thicken to light to medium trace (See: What is trace).
5. Add essential oils and mix well.
6. Pour into mold, cover, and insulate for 24 hours (do not insulate if your house is above 80 degrees). Remove from mold and cut. Allow to cure for 3-6 weeks, until hard.

Don’t forget that you can find the Vanilla Maple, Pumpkin Spice, Fall Sunset, and other great holiday soaps in my shop: Click here to check out what’s available.