Natural Chamomile Soap Recipe + Soap Making Instructions
Sweetly scented natural chamomile soap recipe with essential oil, chamomile flowers, and freshly brewed chamomile tea. Includes full cold process soap making instructions.
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Have you ever made yourself a cup of calming chamomile tea? That same sweet and relaxing scent is magnified in this natural chamomile soap recipe. I love making soap inspired by the skincare garden, and this one sums up the sweet apple scent of summer chamomile. You’ll find that the simple recipe is reflected in the elegant design of the finished soaps too. A light sprinkling of dried chamomile hints at what’s inside, but it contains no additional colorants or fancy techniques. Just a cup of freshly brewed chamomile tea gives it that soft and creamy hue.
This soap recipe is blended with rich oils, including nourishing cocoa butter, and the intense fragrance comes from chamomile essential oil. You use chamomile tea to create the lye solution, and dried chamomile flowers decorate the top of each bar. It’s a beautiful and deeply fragrant natural soap recipe that you could even make with homegrown chamomile. It’s a perfect way to preserve those sweet blossoms long after summer has passed.
Making Natural Chamomile Soap
If you’ve not made soap before, this is a lovely beginner recipe to make. The instructions are using the cold-process method, and the ingredients are all natural, Vegan, and relatively easy to work with. The soap recipe below will walk you through the process of making soap, and I’m sure that you will succeed the first time.
The most important thing to consider now is that making natural chamomile soap is a natural process. However, it is also chemistry, and there are steps and ingredients that need extra attention to detail. These include measuring the ingredients perfectly using a kitchen scale, knowing when soap has hit ‘trace,’ and making sure to work safely with lye. I have a free series on beginner soapmaking that you are welcome to read through, and I also have a soapmaking ebook and natural soapmaking course available.
- Natural Soap Ingredients
- Soap Making Equipment & Safety
- Easy Soap Recipes
- Step-by-Step Cold Process Soap Making
German Chamomile vs. Roman Chamomile
There are two main types of chamomile that you can both grow and get extracts from. Roman chamomile (Anthemis nobilis) is the type that you can grow low-lying chamomile lawns with. It’s a perennial and doesn’t grow more than a foot off the ground, and is oftentimes much shorter. German chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla syn. Matricaria recutita) is a much taller (18-24″) annual plant, so you start it from seeds each year, and it benefits from supports. It does like to self-seed, though, so look for tiny seedlings in autumn and winter and consider transplanting them.
The two chamomiles smell similar but have different uses. Roman chamomile has a sweet, floral, and apple-like scent and is used for relaxation and digestive health. It’s also been shown to have high levels of antioxidants, making it an intriguing ingredient for anti-aging recipes. German chamomile smells like sweet summer hay and apples and is great for sore muscles, skin complaints, eczema, and making a relaxing cup of tea.
German chamomile essential oil is also a vibrant blue color! Both types of essential oil can be blue when you pour it from the bottle. German chamomile is bright blue but Roman is a much paler shade or may even appear clear.
Benefits of Chamomile for the skin
The essential oil I use in this recipe is Roman chamomile, but you could use German if you wish. If you’re looking for more skin therapy from your chamomile oil, though, German has far more benefits. Used in lotions, creams, and serums, German chamomile helps ease the symptoms of eczema and inflammation and helps regenerate the skin. That’s why I use it in this chamomile skin cream recipe.
Both types of essential oil are expensive, so if you’d like to skip using them, feel free. Though I love how gorgeous it smells, essential oils are always an optional ingredient in soap recipes. Also, if you’d like to use a different essential oil, you can learn how much of each is safe to use in this essential oil for soapmaking chart.
Lastly, the chamomile flowers in this chamomile soap recipe are there for two reasons. To make the infusion and for decoration. You can use German or Roman for both/either. Though the infusion will not have the strength of essential oil in terms of skin therapy, it will contain some, and it also tints the bars a lovely creamy color.
Drying Chamomile Flowers
Oftentimes dried chamomile flowers that you purchase from health food shops or cosmetic suppliers arrive looking very shriveled and brown. If you’d like prettier dried chamomile with fresher therapeutic properties, you can grow your own. I go through how to grow chamomile (both types) in my book, A Woman’s Garden Grow Beautiful Plants and Make Useful Things. It’s not difficult, and when they bloom in summer, you pick the flower heads and dry them on a screen or in a food dehydrator. Dried chamomile is good for at least a year.
More Natural Soap Recipes
If you enjoyed this chamomile soap recipe, I invite you to try my other soap ideas. I also have an easy recipe for chamomile-infused lip balm and chamomile skin lotion if you’d like to create more skin-soothing chamomile skin care. Here are more botanically-inspired soap recipes and ideas that I think you’ll enjoy:
- Naturally Red Himalayan Rhubarb Soap Recipe
- Complete Guide to Natural Soap Additives (and what they do)
- Sweet Orange Soap Recipe
- Natural Peppermint Soap Recipe with real peppermint
- Make Naturally Purple Soap with Alkanet Root
Natural Chamomile Soap Recipe
Equipment
- Mason jar
- Stainless steel pan for melting the solid oils
- A large bowl for measuring the liquid oils into
Ingredients
Chamomile Tea (water infusion)
- 175 g Distilled water (6.17 oz)
- 2 TBSP Dried chamomile flowers (or 4 TBSP fresh)
Lye solution
- 62 g Sodium hydroxide (2.19 oz)
- 124 g Cooled chamomile tea (4.37 oz)
Solid oils
- 114 g Coconut oil (refined) (4.01 oz)
- 68 g Shea butter (2.4 oz)
- 45 g Cocoa butter (1.59 oz)
Liquid oils
- 204 g Olive oil (7.2 oz )
- 23 g Castor oil (0.8 oz)
Add after trace
- 1 tsp Roman chamomile essential oil (3.8 g / 0.13 oz (optional ingredient))
Instructions
Make the Chamomile Tea
- Measure the distilled water into a mug or kettle and heat it to scalding. Pour over the chamomile flowers and leave to steep until the tea is at room temperature.
- Strain the tea through the sieve, and reserve the liquid to make the lye solution. Measure it to get the amount needed to make the lye solution, and if for some reason there isn't enough, you can make up the difference in distilled water.
Prepare to Make Soap
- Prepare your workstation with your tools and equipment. Put on rubber gloves, eye protection, and an apron. Carefully pre-measure the ingredients. The solid oils into the pan, the liquid oils into a jug, the chamomile tea into another heat-proof jug, and the lye in another container such as a glass jar or ramekin.
Make the Lye Solution
- Next, dissolve the lye (sodium hydroxide) crystals in the chamomile tea. In an airy place, outdoors is best, pour the lye crystals into the water and stir well. There will be a lot of heat and steam so be careful. Try not to breathe it in. Leave outside in a safe place, or in a shallow basin of water (inside or outside) to cool.
Make Cold-Process Chamomile Soap
- Melt the solid oils in a stainless steel pan on very low heat. When melted, remove from the heat and set on a potholder. Pour in the liquid oils. If you have the olive and castor oils in the same container, stir them together first before pouring them into the pan. Castor oil is pretty sticky and it's easier to pour when mixed with a lighter oil.
- Measure the temperatures of the lye solution and the oils. You should aim to cool them both to be about 100°F / 38°C. A digital thermometer is great for soapmaking but an infrared temperature gun is miles better. There's less mess and it's much quicker.
- Pour the chamomile lye solution into the pan of oils. If you can, gently pour it against a spoon or spatula since this will reduce the chances of air bubbles.
- Dip your immersion blender into the pan and with it turned off, stir the mixture. Next, bring it to the center of the pan, and with both your hands, hold it on the bottom of the pan and blitz it for just a couple of seconds. Turn it off and stir the soap batter, using the blender as a spoon. Repeat until the mixture thickens up to 'trace'. This is when the batter leaves a distinguishable trail on the surface. The consistency will be like thin custard.
- Next, add the essential oil and stir in. You really don't need very much (relatively speaking) chamomile essential oil to make a big aromatherapy impact. This is 1/3 the amount of essential oil as you'll find in my other soap recipes.
- Working quickly, pour the soap into the mold. Give it a tap to settle it. I'm using a 1-lb silicone loaf mold in this recipe but you could use another type if you wish. The loaf mold is handy for gelling soap though.
- Next, add texture to the soap top if you'd like (a skewer comes in handy) and decorate it with dried chamomile flowers. Less is more in my opinion, but go as wild as you'd like. Just remember that if you have to cut through any of them, they may leave drag marks in your soap.
- The soap now needs to harden and cool. If you want an opaque white-cream color of soap, place the soap in the fridge overnight. If you want the same creamy color as mine, place the soap in an oven warmed to about 77°C (170°F) and keep it at that temperature for 30 minutes or until you see the soap slightly darken. It begins with a circle of darker color in the center and eventually spreads to the entire loaf. When you see this, turn the oven off then leave it there overnight.
- The next day, take the soap out of the oven and set someplace to rest for another day. Once 48 hours have passed, you can take the soap out of the mold. You can get around six decent-sized bars of soap from this batch. Also, if you're using a loaf mold want to avoid drag marks from the flowers, cut the loaf from the bottom.
Curing and storing your Chamomile Soap
- Cure the bars for 28 days. Curing means leaving the bars spaced out on a protected surface out of direct sunlight and in an airy place. This allows the extra water content to fully evaporate out. Here are full instructions on how to cure soap. The soap will also scent your room as it cures.
- Once made, your soap will have a shelf-life of up to two years. Check the oil bottles that you're using though — the closest best-by date is the best-by date of your soap. If your handmade soap is destined as gifts, check out these eco-friendly soap packaging ideas.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed this recipe. The smell, the texture of the soap, the hardness, etc. I highly recommend this recipe to anyone looking for a nice hard soap, one that lasts, and one that isn’t too drying.
Hi Tanya
I love your soap recipes and have been making quite a few. I grow my own herbs and therefore always use them in the soap. With the oils, I don’t have cocoa butter but can get shea butter really easily, so can i replace that part of the oil?
Thanks
Hi Rayna, I’d recommend that instead of trying to change this recipe you use a different one that has ingredients that you can get ahold of. Perhaps this eco-friendly soap recipe or this 100% coconut oil soap recipe. You can add the essential oil and chamomile infusion from this recipe to either of those. Changing a soap recipe, even just a single oil, isn’t as easy as direct swaps because the entire formula needs to be recalculated for lye amounts.
Thank you so much for amazing recipes. I live in Iran and have a question. I was wondering if you could answer me. Have you ever made soap from fresh herbal sprouts like clover sprouts? Is there any special method for that?
Hi Mohammad, you can make a tea with fresh herbs (including clover) or you can incorporate the leaves into the soap as a puree. Most leaves will turn your soap yellow to beige rather than green though! You can also dry the leaves and pulse them to add to soap batter or to use as decorations for the tops of your bars. You might find this piece on using botanicals in soap helpful.
Amazing, thank you so much Tanya
Hi Tanya,
I’m new to soap making. Can I replace sunflower and castor oils with olive oil? Would the amount of the liquid oil be the same.
Thank you
Aurelija
Hi Aurelija, please read this piece on changing and customizing a soap recipe.
Hi Tanya, I made this soap today. it’s gorgeous. I added a little bit of oatmeal too. But I have just realised that instead of using cocoa butter I used coconut butter!!! Do you think this is a big problem? Do I need to discard this batch?
Thank you in advance for any advise.
Silvia
Hi Silvia, coconut butter (from what I understand) is made completely out of coconut oil. If that’s the case, then the soap you’ve made won’t be harmful but it may be drying on your skin. It would have an 11.5% superfat, but that’s not enough to counter the oil-pulling ability of coconut oil soap.
I love this soap recipe!
I recently asked a question about sunflower oil and swapping it so it can have a longer shelf life but I take it back, I realize I was thinking sweet almond oil and its 6-month shelf life. Sorry!
Hi, I would like to know if it’s possible for me to substitute the sunflower oil for another so its shelf life is longer? Also if I want a smaller batch can I just divide everything by 2 or would you say it wouldn’t be best to change up the numbers?
Hi, could i use soap for my hair?
You should check out this shampoo bar recipe and the detailed instructions on how people use soap bars for hair.
Absolutely stunning. Simply amazing. Incredibly beautiful. I shall definitely try this recipe.
Hi Tanya,
I’ve purchase this soap mold and it doesn’t hold it’s shape. The soap comes out bowed outwards. I’m not sure how you manage to get these straight sides, mine aren’t. Any idea why?
Sometimes the silicone is too thin and causes bowing out. Try shopping for molds in person at a kitchen and cooking shop. Look for silicone that’s firmer or thicker than what you have now.
I like the loaf mold from bramble berry, and I just cut the bars
Try finding a wooden silicone mold set. That’s what I use. I also use empty milk or juice cartons to mold my soaps I actually like them better than the silicone mold…lol..
Hi Tanya!
I’ve been enjoying your recipes and the wonderfully informative content you provide! I’d like to ask a question, if that’s okay. i live in Nova Scotia, Canada. We have all kinds of daisies, which look remarkably like chamomile. I tried to find out how to actually tell the difference, but I can’t seem to narrow down anything specific. I have read that chamomile can grow to about 24 inches high. We have “Big”daisies, “less big” daisies and then something a few of us call “baby” daisies. They all look the same except for size. Is there a definitive way to tell if what I see growing all around us is chamomile, or simply a pretty daisy? I’ve had to buy dried chamomile for my soap and skin care recipes….but I’d be over the moon if I could learn to forage for it myself! Thanks so much if you can give me any advice.
Lisa ;)
They are most likely all different flowers in the asteracea family. You can’t miss chamomile — it’s the scent :)
Hi
Can i infused distilled water with some chamomile ?
Yes, that’s the first step in the recipe :)
Hi, Tanya.
Can this recipe turn into other kind of tea soap? Like a green tea soap by using green tea instead of chamomile tea in lye solution?
BTW, I’ve dived into soap-making as a hobby thanks to your recipes, and it’s been so much fun. Thanks a lot :)
Of course it could be :) Peppermint tea, green tea, rose petal tea, loads of teas can be used to make handmade soap. Most will tint your bars a light brown color though.
Hi,thank you for the recipe. Does the camomile EO stay on after curing? It is an expensive EO so I haven’t tried it yet.
Thank you.
Yes, it does last a good while
Hello. I have a small question about H2O. I am new in soap making but many years I am doing face creams and definitely prefer brews instead water. Did you try to use it? I was visiting many websites and every person use only distilled water.
Best
hi, in your recipe for the liquid oils you have measured them in grams. In the UK we use fluid ounces or milliliters. how can I work it out so that i don’t mess up the recipe.
Hi Katie! I’m in Britain too and in soap making, wherever you are in the world, you always use weight. Volume measurements (like fluid oz or ml) are too inaccurate and you’ll never find good soap making recipes that use them.
Tanya, what SF in this soap I can do?
There’s a superfat already in the recipe Yana :)
Hi Tanya I’m new to soaping want to make batches of soap. Can I double a recipes ingredients to get more bars of soap
Hi Joann and yes you can :) I tend to share small 1-lb recipes on Lovely Greens so that they’re easier and less expensive to make. Very important for when you’re learning. Feel free to double/trip/increase recipes but do be aware that temperatures will need to be lowered on most recipes. For large batches, I mix when all the ingredients are between 95-100F.
Hi! Can I simply double all of the quantities of the ingredients if I want to use a wooden mold and make bigger bars?
Absolutely :)