Choose your Exfoliants for Soap Making! Pumice, Clay or Oatmeal?

There are medium, soft and abrasive exfoliants for soap making.  If you want to strip away the top layer of dead skin cells on your body you would most likely use a soft and gentle exfoliating agent such as clay.  A wide range of exfoliating agents are available to achieve your specific soap making goal.  The level of exfoliation varies greatly between materials. 

Materials that are gentle and mild such as clays and powders are used in cosmetics and facial scrubs.  Other materials such as sands and volcanic rock are rough and abrasive.  These materials are best used in making soaps for mechanics, machinists or even gardeners.  The medium exfoliating agents are materials such as oatmeal, lavender buds and ginger root.  These materials when ground up to a fine powder will make a nice hand washing and shower soap. 

It really depends on your soap making goals whether or not you will use a moderate, gentle or abrasive material in your soaps.

Rough, Abrasive Exfoliants for Soap Making.

First, lets cover the rough and abrasive materials. To clean dirty greasy hands, add an abrasive material into your soap. Use a pumice, black sand or a white sand to get the job done. 

Use Pumice, A gray colored volcanic rock.  Purchase this in the crushed-up pulverized form. Add the pumice at early trace. Mix thoroughly to create an abrasive soap that will loosen and remove grease and dirt from your hands and fingernails.  Add 5% to 10% pulverized pumice based off the total oil amount used in your soap batch.

Use magnetite black sands found on beaches and in dry river banks. Sand will make a good abrasive bar of soap and cleans dirty greasy hands.  Use 5% - 10% black sand based off the total oil amount of your soap batch. 

Use a quartz white sand found on beaches and in dry river banks.  Just like the black sand it will make a good abrasive soap for cleaning dirty hands.  Use 5% - 10% white sand based off the total oil amount of your soap batch.

Moderate Soap Making Exfoliants

Oatmeal, one of the many good and moderate exfoliants for soap making.

Make sure to grind up the whole oats to a fine powder using an electric coffee grinder.   Save this fine oatmeal powder for when you make your soap.  You will add this powdered oatmeal when you reach trace in the soap making process.  Make sure to mix it up well. Use 5% to 10% powdered oats based off the total oil weight of the batch. 

Powdered citrus peels are another moderate exfoliating agent to add to your soaps.  To make your own powdered citrus peels you will first, strip the peels off your fruit.  Break up the peels into smaller pieces.  Set the peels out to dry until they are hard and brittle.  At this point they are completely dehydrated.  Take the peels and grind them up into a fine powder with your electric coffee grinder. 

Save the powdered citrus peels in a zip-lock bag.  When you are ready to make your next batch of soap with a moderate exfoliating quality add this citrus powder.  The amount to use is 5% to 10% based off the total oil weight for the soap batch.  

Lavender Buds make another great exfoliating agent that is moderate and good for hand washing and showering soaps.  Pick your lavender buds from the garden or purchase them from your health food store. Make sure they are dried out before you grind them up to a fine powder. Add them to the soap at trace. The amount to use is 5% - 10% based off the total oil weight of the soap batch.

Gentle, Soft Clay Powders. 

These gentle exfoliating agents are clay powders that are often used as ingredients in facial masks and scrubs.  Condition your skin by adding these clay powders to your soaps. The clay powders suited for this task are Bentonite Clay powder, Kaolin White Clay powder, and Red Moroccan Clay powder.

Bentonite clay powder is an excellent cosmetic exfoliating agent. It is also a great clay to add to your shaving soaps as it has a slippery texture which helps razors to glide over skin better. Bentonite clay is also used as one of the ingredients in facial masks as it cleanses the skin quite well. 

Kaolin White Clay powder is excellent for sensitive skin. It is found in cosmetics and is used as a thickening agent. It will remove toxins from the skin as it gently exfoliates and cleanses.

Red Moroccan Clay powder is one of the natural soap making exfoliants that will nourish skin and reduce the size of pores. It’s a moisturizing agent and a deodorizer. Add this during early trace. Add this clay powder at 2% to 5% of the total oil amount for the soap batch.