Easy Rice Bran Oil Liquid Soap Recipe
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After the popularity of my 100% olive oil Liquid Castile Soap recipe, I thought I’d make another simple recipe for you to try! I had some old rice bran oil I needed to use up - so I thought, why not? I love this kind of liquid soap making. So simple, easy and truly satisfying. Since making this recipe I’ve been using this soap as a body and face wash in the shower. It’s quite lovely! Very gentle, similar to the all olive oil version in that way. This might be a good recipe for those of you who find olive oil difficult or too expensive to buy.
There’s a lot to learn in the realm of soap making and liquid soap making is no exception. The book Liquid Soapmaking (ad link) by Jackie Thompson, has been an invaluable resource for me, and while I use a different method than Jackie’s to calculate my recipes (explained and demonstrated in this video) I’ve learned a lot from her work and am very grateful for her experience and scholarship.
As always, if you are new to soap making - make sure you check out my introductory material for beginners, and watch this important video about lye safety which helps to build knowledge and confidence as a beginner soap maker.
I hope you enjoy this recipe.
Easy Rice Bran Oil Liquid Soap Recipe
Please ensure you are familiar with the basics of soap making including safety requirements before you attempt this or any handmade soap recipe. Please view my soap making safety video here and read my disclaimer here.
This recipe uses the paste method for liquid soap making whereby an initial soap paste is made and completely saponified (turned to soap) before dilution for use in pump bottles or other containers.
Soap Paste Ingredients
500g rice bran oil
154g water
Distilled or demineralised water is best (makes the clearest soap), but filtered, sanitised drinking water is also fine if it is a soft water type.102g potassium hydroxide (KOH)
Mine is 90% purity. If you have a different strength, you’ll need to recalculate this recipe. This video shows you how I do it.102g vegetable glycerine
This is an optional ingredient. If you don’t have glycerine you can replace it with another 104g water.
*Be aware that glycerine acts as a solvent in this recipe and does wonders to accelerate saponification and prevent separation of oils and lye water as the soap paste is mixed and cooked. This recipe requires a lot more patience and stick blending without the glycerine, but it can be done! Glycerine also adds emollience and extra moisture to the recipe due to its humectant properties, so it’s great to use if you have it.
Dilution water
You will need between 1300 and 1500g/ml of purified water to dilute the full amount of soap paste made in this recipe. Start with 1300g and add more if needed. If your soap forms a skin on the top after it’s cooled, that’s a sign that it needs more water. The thicker the skin, the more water is needed.
In the video I was unable to use demineralised water for diluting my soap paste, as is my usual process (my local shop had sold out), so I used filtered rain water from our tank and boiled this for 2 minutes to sterilize it. Whatever water you use, make sure it’s very pure and clean! Also bear in mind that if your water is hard or has minerals in it, it may make your soap cloudy. Rice bran oil tends to make liquid soap a bit cloudy as well.
You can also dilute just a portion of this soap paste and store the remaining paste in the fridge for later dilution as I do in my first ever liquid soap recipe video.
Other recipe specifications
The crock pot I used in the video is a small one, it holds 3 litres. If you don’t have a crock pot you can make this soap using a saucepan on the stove on very low heat, or use a double boiler.
This recipe is made with a 1% superfat, and does not require any additional ingredients to adjust the pH of the soap. See this video about my method for calculating liquid soap recipes for more details and rationale.
This recipe is calculated with a 1.5 : 1 water to lye ratio for the paste, however with the additional glycerine added (or water if you have no glycerine), the final water to lye ratio becomes 2.5 : 1.
My potassium hydroxide is 90% purity and the recipe is calculated to factor that in.
The recipe makes approximately 840g of soap paste and 2300g of finished liquid soap. Your yield may be slightly more or less than mine, depending on evaporation during the cook.
Salt solution for thickening
This is completely optional but liquid soap recipes made with ‘soft’ unsaturated oils lend themselves quite well to thickening with a 20% salt solution.
If you are using essential oils (see below) make sure you add those before you thicken the soap with a salt solution. Many essential oils thicken liquid soap by themselves, in which case further thickening with salt is not required.
To make the salt solution, mix 20g of non-iodised table salt with 80g of distilled (or otherwise purified) water and stir until fully dissolved.
Add the salt solution to completely cooled and diluted liquid soap, in small amounts (a teaspoon to start with), stir thoroughly and leave the soap to thicken for 30-60 minutes before checking. Be careful not to add too much, only slight thickening is recommended. Too much salt can inhibit the lather and will not thicken the soap beyond a certain point. Jackie Thompson in her book Liquid Soap Making (ad link) recommends adding no more than 1% salt solution of the total diluted soap amount (for example, if you have 500g of diluted liquid soap, you would add no more than 5g of 20% salt solution).
Essential oils
I did not add any essential oils to my liquid in the video demonstration, however I usually add essential oils as I decant this soap into individual bottles to use around my household.
I like to use 1-2% essential oils in my finished liquid soap. To calculate this I multiply the weight of the diluted soap (in grams) by 0.01 (1%), 0.015 (1.5%) or 0.02 (2%) to get the amount of essential oil needed, in grams.
If you would like to fragrance your liquid soap using synthetic fragrance oils, check the manufacturer’s suggested usage rates. If you aren’t sure I would start at 0.5-1% for fragrance oils. A little goes a long way in liquid soap!
Be aware that some essential oils and fragrance oils can dramatically change the texture of liquid soap - some will thicken the soap, some will make it runny. Experiment with small amounts first to see how your oils react with your soap.
METHOD
Rather than duplicate it here, please see my written Liquid Castile Soap recipe for the full method I used to make this recipe (they are the same).
Please also view the full video for this rice bran oil liquid soap recipe so you are clear on the process.
Please leave a comment below if you have any feedback or questions.
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Elly
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