This is a natural antiseptic soap with lavender and peppermint essential oil. The rich blue color is obtained with natural indigo powder. True indigo is a natural dye that has been used by ancient civilisations in Egypt, India, Mesopotamia and Asia.
Indigo is a potent extract obtained from a variety of different plants from tropical and subtropical regions, and is said to have many healing properties. Native Americans used it for healing wounds, since it helps inhibit the growth of microorganisms.
Its natural antiseptic properties will not only help heal sores and small lesions, but it also has curing properties towards psoriasis, rashes, mouth sores and eczema.
Both the recipe and photo on this page were submitted by Slandha, from Srann Handcrafted Soap (www.srann.co). Check their site and facebook page for more inspiring handcrafted soaps. Here’s the original recipe:
Natural Indigo Soap
- 16.91 oz coconut oil
- 13.53 oz rice bran oil
- 3.38 oz sesame oil
- 4.5 oz lye (NaOH)
- 10.48 oz distilled water or rainwater
- 1/2 oz indigo paste or powder
- 1/2 oz peppermint essential oil
- 1/2 oz lavender essential oil
Use standard cold process procedures. Yields about 3.2 pounds of soap.
In case you prefer to make a larger (or smaller) batch, I converted the recipe to percentages. Use soapcalc (or another lye calculator of your choice) to get the specific amounts you need for a given batch size.
- 50% coconut oil
- 40% rice bran oil
- 10% sesame oil
- 1 tsp PPO indigo paste or powder (about 4.2g)
- 1 tsp PPO peppermint essential oil
- 1 tsp PPO lavender essential oil
PPO = per pound of oils
