Banana Soap Recipe (With Heavy Cream)

Published: Jun 3, 2021 · Modified: Jul 24, 2023 by Celine · This post may contain affiliate links · 47 Comments

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Banana Soap Recipe (With Heavy Cream) - Cold Process (1)

Last month I experimented with different ways to use bananas in soap. I wanted to find a visually pleasing outcome for today's banana soap recipe. The results ranged from light cream color with a little bit of specks to really brown with lots of specks. You can check out the full post here or see the the picture below for a quick side by side comparison.

Banana Soap Recipe (With Heavy Cream) - Cold Process (2)

For this banana soap recipe I decided to use a fairly ripe banana since I knew from my experiments that I would get this awesome speckled effect which would contrast well with the white piped top. After I was done making the soap I put it in the freezer since I absolutely wanted to avoid gelling.

Banana Soap Recipe (With Heavy Cream) - Cold Process (3)

Bananas (like most produce) add a wonderful creaminess and abundance to the soap lather because of their sugar content. I also hope that some of the minerals found in them somehow make it to the other side of saponification, but that might just be wishful thinking 😉

To add even more rich creaminess and moisturizing properties to the soap I added a good amount of heavy cream. What makes heavy cream in soap so skin loving is it's high fat content (a whopping 36%). To counter this you have to be careful not to go overboard with your superfat in the finished soap. Here's a great article that walks you through how to add heavy cream to your soap .

Let's get started making banana and cream soap, shall we?

If you've never made cold process soap before, make sure you check out my posts on lye safety, my beginner's tutorial and my list of equipment needed.

Banana Soap Recipe (With Heavy Cream) - Cold Process (4)

Equipment needed for Banana Soap Recipe:

Soaper's Choice Silicone Loaf Mold
Stickblender
Digital Scale
1 Medium Sized Container, and 2 Small Ones (one for oils, one for lye solution and one for the piping
Spatula
Disposable Piping Bag
Piping Tip 2 D
Fork

Reipe for 46 oz/ 1300 g of soap, makes 7-8 bars of Banana Soap:

This recipe uses a lye solution of 45% and a superfat of 3% to account for the extra water and fat that comes from the heavy cream and banana.

Distilled Water: 5.95 oz / 169 g
Lye: 4.9 oz / 138 g
Coconut Oil (30%): 10.2 oz / 289 g
Oilive Oil (32%): 10.9 oz / 308 g
Shea Butter (25%): 8.5 oz / 241 g
Rice Bran Oil (13%): 4.4 oz / 125 g
Heavy Cream: 2 oz / 56 g
Mashed Banana: 2 oz / 56 g
May Chang (Litsea Cubeba) Essential Oil: 24 g
Kaolin Clay : 1 Tbsp

Instructions:

1. Prepare lye solution and let cool to room temperature

2. Melt and mix coconut oil, shea butter, olive oil and rice bran oil and let cool to room temperature

3. In the meantime prepare banana by mashing it with a fork, disperse kaolin clay in 1 tablespoon of water and measure out essential oil

4. Add heavy cream to oils by using a stick blender and thoroughly mixing until evenly incorporated

5. Carefully pour lye solution into oils and blend until you reach emulsification (no more oil floating on top and the mix looks cloudy, milky)

6. Now separate about 12 oz of soap for the piping into a small container and set aside

7. Add mashed banana and essential oils to the now bigger portion of the soap and stick blend to medium trace

8. Pour soap into the mold

9. Put this soap aside in the fridge to keep cool and avoid gel

Looking for more awesome natural soap ideas? How about trying:

Smoky Vetiver Soap
Papaya Turmeric Soap
Cucumber Mint Soap

Cold Process Banana Soap

Yield: 7-8 Bars

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Active Time: 20 minutes

Additional Time: 2 days 24 seconds

Total Time: 2 days 50 minutes 24 seconds

Materials

Distilled Water: 5.95 oz / 169 g
Lye: 4.9 oz / 138 g
Coconut Oil (30%): 10.2 oz / 289 g
Oilive Oil (32%): 10.9 oz / 308 g
Shea Butter (25%): 8.5 oz / 241 g
Rice Bran Oil (13%): 4.4 oz / 125 g
Heavy Cream: 2 oz / 56 g
Mashed Banana: 2 oz / 56 g
May Chang (Litsea Cubeba) Essential Oil: 24 g
Kaolin Clay : 1 Tbsp

Tools

Soaper’s Choice Silicone Loaf Mold
Stickblender
Digital Scale
1 Medium Sized Container, and 2 Small Ones (one for oils, one for lye solution and one for the piping
Spatula
Disposable Piping Bag
Piping Tip 2 D
Fork

Instructions

Prepare lye solution and let cool to room temperature
. Melt and mix coconut oil, shea butter, olive oil and rice bran oil and let cool to room temperature
In the meantime prepare banana by mashing it with a fork, disperse kaolin clay in 1 tablespoon of water and measure out essential oil
Add heavy cream to oils by using a stick blender and thoroughly mixing until evenly incorporated
Carefully pour lye solution into oils and blend until you reach emulsification (no more oil floating on top and the mix looks cloudy, milky)
Now separate about 12 oz of soap for the piping into a small container and set aside
Add mashed banana and essential oils to the now bigger portion of the soap and stick blend to medium trace
Pour soap into the mold
Put this soap aside in the fridge to keep cool and avoid gel
To the portion that you set aside add kaolin clay and stick blend until thick trace is achieved
Wait until the consistency of the soap is thick enough to pipe, the soap needs to be able to hold a stiff peak (this may take 10 - 20 min)
Prepare the piping bag by cutting off the tip and inserting the piping tip
Fill the bag with stiff soap batter and take the poured soap out of the fridge
Mark your soap mold where you plan to cut the bars
Pipe three dollops across the middle of each marked bar
Pipe two dollops to fill in the sides and one dollop on top in the middle
Put the finished soap in the freezer over night
Take the soap out of the freezer and let it rest at room temperature for another 24 hours
Release from the mold by gently pulling on all sides first and the applying steady pressure on the bottom
Cut into bars and cure for 4 weeks

Banana Soap Recipe (With Heavy Cream) - Cold Process (2024)