Orange Spice Tea Soap for Winter Skin Care or Seasonal Gifts

January 1, 2018

Learn how to make orange spice tea soap with this cold process soap recipe. Formulated for winter skin care, this hydrating homemade soap is an easy way to nourish and care for dry, skin. Make it for the holidays or for everyday winter skin care.

DIY Orange Spice Tea Soap

If hot orange spice tea is one of your favorite winter luxuries, then I have the perfect soap recipe to add to your weekend to do list. This orange spice tea soap recipe is scented with a fragrance oil of the same name. Its aroma is a fragrant blend of juicy seasonal oranges and zesty spices that’s sure to delight your senses. While the moisturizing soap formula hydrates and nourishes dry winter skin.

Cold Process Soap For Winter Skin Care

Oranges are a common gift throughout the holiday season. They’re also the most affordable during the winter months. The reason? Oranges are actually a seasonal winter fruit. Everything from blood oranges to kumquats to clementines are picked during the winter months when they are both the sweetest and the juiciest.

If you can’t get enough if oranges this winter, then you’ll definitely want to make this cold process soap recipe. Let your shower envelope you with the warm, enticing fragrance of this homemade soap by learning how to make soap from scratch — starting with this amazing recipe and tutorial.

Incorporate your favorite warm and cozy spices into this soap for the perfect cold weather scent. This orange spice tea soap recipe is a comforting way to care for skin. Made with nourishing soapmaking oils and butters, like walnut oil and cocoa butter, this homemade soap is scented with an orange spice tea fragrance oil. While the rustic color is derived from natural turmeric powder.

TIP: Can’t find this soap making fragrance oil? This skin care product can be also be scented with your favorite winter soap scent.

Orange Spice Tea Soap Recipe

Discover how to make your own homemade soaps for your family this winter. Not only is my orange tea soap ideal for everyday use throughout the year, but it’s also a delight to gift as holiday gifts as well as housewarming and hostess gifts.

Soap Making Ingredients:

There are three main ingredients used to make soap from scratch. These are the fats (soapmaking oils and butters,) an alkali (sodium or potassium hydroxide, ) and a liquid such as water or milk to dissolve the lye. By choosing soap making fats with specific properties, can determine the final outcome of your soap bars. Additional ingredients such as fragrance or color may also be added.

For my orange tea soap, I used a combination of oils and butters that hydrate skin. Therefore, they not only cleanse skin, but they also prevent too many oils from being stripped from skin. This keeps the soap from being overly drying, so it feels soft and moisturized.

These are the ingredients you will need to make this winter tea scented soap:

Fats: Oils and Butters

Soap making fats are a necessary ingredient for making cold press soap. When mixed with lye, or sodium hydroxide that has been dissolved in water, a chemical process called saponification occurs. This in turn makes soap. Soap fats may consist of any semi-solid or liquid oils, such as vegetable oils or tallow, as well as butters in any form.

.8 oz. castor oil (5%): Castor oil is generally used to boost the bubbles in soap lather.
1.6 oz. cocoa butter (10%): This hard butter is wonderful for all skin types and is used to add hydrating properties to cold process soap bars.
3.2 oz. refined coconut oil (20%): Coconut oil helps boost the the lather in soap. It’s generally considered a cleansing oil with some skin conditioning properties.
6.4 oz. pomace olive oil (40%): Olive oil is a popular soap making ingredient. However, I find that pomace olive oil not only traces faster than its virgin version, but it also makes a harder bar. Like other soap making oils, olive has moisturizing and skin conditioning properties.
4 oz. walnut oil (25%): This carrier oil is an excellent choice for winter skin care. It’s deeply nourishing thanks to the abundance of fatty acids present. Primarily walnut oil is prized for promoting youthful looking skin, hydrating dry skin, and reducing skin inflammation.

Lye-Water Solution

The lye-water solution consists of an alkali — in this case sodium hydroxide— and water. An alkali is one of the two parts of the chemical process that creates soap, the other being the fats. Water is used in this instance to dissolve the solution so it can be used to make this orange spice tea soap.

5.25 fl. oz. distilled water
2.15 oz. lye/sodium hydroxide

Soap Ingredients Added at Trace

Once the soap is mixed and reaches a light trace, you will add the turmeric powder and the fragrance oil.

.4 oz. orange spice tea fragrance oil: A fragrance oil is used to scent the soap so that it smells like your favorite winter beverage.
.2 oz. (1 Tablespoon) turmeric powder: This ingredients has anti-inflammatory properties and is often used to help with hyper skin pigmentation. It is also a natural soap colorant.

Equipment Needed to Make Lye Soap

To make lye soap from scratch, you will need these basic kitchen tools and soap making equipment:

Digital Kitchen Scale: A digital kitchen scale that weighs in grams and ounces and can handle some more significant weight. I have used a Baker’s Math scale for years and highly recommend it over say a shipping scale from an office supply store. It will stay more accurate over time and last much longer.
Stainless Steel Pot: A stainless steel pot for mixing your soap. You NEVER want to use aluminum ANYTHING to make soap as this does some pretty crazy chemistry of its own when it reacts with lye. And it’s not the chemistry we want for soapmaking. It’s also pretty dangerous. Therefore if you aren’t 100% certain your pot isn’t aluminum, then buy one that you know is most definitely not.
Digital Thermometer: A thermometer so you can accurately judge the temperature of your lye-water and oils before you mix them together. You can either use a candy thermometer or a laser thermometer.
Stick Blender: You’ll also need a stick blender/hand blender/immersion blender. It’s called many things, but it’s basically the same tool. This takes the hardest physical part of soapmaking — the mixing — out of the equation. As a result your soap batter will trace faster. This means less time you have to stand around mixing. It also helps to ensure an evenly mixed batch of soap.
Heat Safe Pitchers and Measuring Cups: Pitchers and measuring cups! You’ll need a heat safe pitcher or container to mix your lye-water in as well as to weigh out ingredients.
Utensils: You’ll also want to have some handy dandy utensils like large mixing spoons and a spatula. I use a long plastic spoon, like the wooden ones but plastic, to mix my lye solution. I use a heavy duty metal spoon to scoop out semi-solid oils and butters from the containers in which they are they are packaged. In addition, I also use a spatula to get all of the soap out of the pot into the mold.
Soap Mold: Finally you will need a mold for your orange spice tea soap. For this particular cold press soap recipe, I used this silicone gingerbread mold.

Soap Making Prep and Safety Precautions

Before getting started, it is important that you take necessary safety precautions. As you will be working with lye, you will need to wear eye protection and gloves. You should also ensure that none of your containers or utensils are made from aluminum.

If you’ve never made cold process soap, I recommend starting with a beginner cold process soap recipe. Otherwise, you’ll follow my directions on how to make lye soap when making my orange spice tea soap recipe.

Cold Process Soap Recipe Notes

As this homemade soap is made using the cold process soap making method, it needs to be run back through a lye calculator if you want to make any changes to the size of the recipe. Therefore, I am providing notes on how to make this lye soap to assist with this process should you want to swap ingredients or resize the soap recipe.

This homemade soap recipe has a 33% water discount and 6% superfat and creates six low cleansing, high conditioning soap bars.

How to Make Orange Spice Tea Soap

Following are my directions on how to make DIY orange spice tea soap.

1. First measure out the distilled water in fluid ounces in a heat safe container.

2. Then use a digital scale to weigh out the lye. Slowly pour the lye into the water and stir until it has completely dissolved. Set aside to cool.

3. Next, weigh out the soapmaking fats, or the oils and butters. Combine them in a stainless steel pot or heat safe container.

4. Now heat the butters and oils for this soap recipe on the stove top on medium-low heat. Alternately, you may also heat them at reduced power in a microwave safe (non-metal, heat safe) container or in a crock pot until melted.

5. Once melted, remove from heat, then set aside to cool.

6. Using a thermometer, check the temperature of both the lye-water solution as well as the melted oils and butters. Once the lye-water and soapmaking oils reach about 90°-95°F, you’re ready to make soap!

7. Weigh out the turmeric powder and mix into the soapmaking oils using an immersion or stick blender.

8. Then slowly pour the lye-water into the warm soapmaking oils. Mix the soap batter with your stick blender until you reach a light trace.

9. Once the soap just begins to trace, weigh out the fragrance oil. Now add the orange spice tea scent to the soap batter. Continue mixing to fully incorporate the fragrance into the soap batter.

10. Once you reach a medium to heavy trace, pour the soap batter into a silicone mold. I used this gingerbread man mold. However, you can use another soap mold of your choice, as desired.

11. Cover the mold with plastic cling wrap or a flat piece of cardboard, cut to fit. Then set the aside in a safe location where it won’t be disturbed.

12. Your orange spice tea soap should be ready to unmold 24-48 hours later. To unmold, simply turn the lye soaps out of the mold.

13. Once you’ve unmolded the homemade soaps, set them aside in a cool location for a minimum of four weeks to cure. Then wrap and label as desired for personal use or gifting.

TIP: Plastic foodservice film is a quick and easy way to wrap your winter soaps for storage.

How to Store Orange Spice Tea Soap

Cold process soap should be stored in a cool, dark place away from direct sunlight. It should also be kept away from extreme temperatures, as this could cause the soap to melt or become brittle. Wrapping the soap in wax paper, scrapbook paper or foodservice film can help keep it from drying out. They may also be shrink wrapped.

It’s also a good idea to store the soap away from other scented items, like candles or perfumes, as the strong scents can transfer to the soap.

How to Label Homemade Soap for Sale

If you’re planning to sell your orange spice tea soaps, you’ll need to label them according to FDA guidelines. If you’re not sure how to label your homemade soaps, I highly recommend the book, Soap and Cosmetic Labeling: How to Follow the Rules and Regs Explained in Plain English, by Marie Gale.

Orange Soap Recipes

If you love my orange spice tea soap recipe as much as I do, then be sure to try these other homemade soap recipes that incorporate an orange fragrance as an ingredient:

Orange Spice Soap Recipe: This easy melt and pour soap recipe for beginners is made using both the Winter Spice essential oil blend combined with both cinnamon leaf and blood orange essential oils.
DIY Lavender Citrus Soap: Learn to make this easy lavender citrus soap recipe using the rebatch soap making method. Also referred to as hand-milled soap, this simple soap project is formulated by grating existing soap bars or leftover soap slivers. That soap is then rebatched with water, moisturizing vitamin E and essential oils for a nourishing skin care product.
Orange Soap Recipe: This blood orange soap is made with real orange powder and blood orange essential oil. Similar to other citrus essential oils, blood orange essential oil has anti-inflammatory, antiseptic and antibacterial properties. This makes this DIY citrus soap especially suitable for acne prone and combination skin.
Orange Espresso Soap: This homemade orange and espresso soap recipe reminds me of chocolate oranges at Christmas time. Like my other soap recipes with orange, these bars also make wonderful, homemade holiday gifts.
Candied Orange Soap: This fun candied orange scented soap is stamped with an electric bass guitar to create decorative bars for DIY gifts for him. For this recipe I combined a Crisp and Candied fragrance oil with a bit of dark patchouli essential oil to cut down on the sweetness of the scent.
Orange Mocha Melt and Pour Soap: This melt and pour coffee soap recipe works great as both a gardener’s soap and a kitchen soap. Scented with a fragrance blend of coffee, orange and mocha, this easy melt and pour soap recipe is a great way to add some fun to your hand washing routine!
Citrus Soap Recipe: My cold process citrus soap contains a citrus inspired natural essential oil blend of peppermint, orange and lemongrass. Formulated to be both cleansing and conditioning, this natural soap works great at tackling sweat and grime without over drying skin.

To discover more of my homemade soap recipes and tutorials, be sure to follow me on Pinterest. You can also find and follow Soap Deli News on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or subscribe to Soap Deli News via email for future updates, DIY projects and homemade soap recipes.