Tomato (Basil) Soap

For a warm, speckled orange-red color in your soap, try using tomato paste, ground tomatoes, and/or a touch of basil in your soap.

You can use this recipe with any soap recipe - or Create Your Own Soap Recipe.

Here are the options:

• Add about 1 tbs. of tomato paste per pound of oils. Add it in at trace
• Add 1-2 tsp. of finely ground sun-dried tomatoes also at trace
• Add 1-2 tsp. of finely ground fresh or dried basil leaves at trace
• Just substitute well-pureed tomatoes (get out that old blender!) for the water in your recipe. The tomatoes have so much water in them as it is, you can use up 100% tomatoe puree in exchange of the water.
• All of the above!

Here's the recipe I used for this batch. (Be sure to run your recipe through a lye calculator if you change the size or oils!)

Recipe
Makes two pounds of soap

• 7.5 oz. Olive Oil
• 7.5 oz. Coconut Oil
• 7 oz. Palm Oil
• 1.5 oz. Castor Oil
• 1.5 oz. Cocoa Butter
• 7.5 oz. total liquid (3-4 large tomatoes, well pureed)
• 3.6 oz. lye
• optional 1-2 tbs tomato paste and/or 1-2 tsp. of finely ground sun-dried tomatoes

1. Follow the directions in Making a lye solution with alternative liquids to make your lye solution with the tomato puree.
2. Make your soap recipe using basic soap making instructions.
3. Add in the tomato paste and/or sun-dried tomoatoes at trace
4. Pour the soap into your mold, wait overnight, unmold, slice, cure and enjoy!

Notes:

• There are several tomato and tomato-basil fragrances available. Two of my favorites are BrambleBerry's Tomato Leaf, and From Nature with Love's Tomato Leaf (Buy Direct).
• Other natural colorants like turmeric or paprika can give you a darker red swirl of color in the more light red-orange soap.

Enjoy!