I want to make an acne soap, need help!

[lunchlady2009]

I've got 3 batches under my belt and totally addicted! You all warned me! Anyway.... My sister-in-law, hubby, sister, and I all have moderate adult acne. I've read that tea tree oil is great for this. Here are the oils I have, coconut, canola,lard,olive,and sunflower (All I can afford right now.)

My Question is this.....

Can I use all or some of these oils with the tea tree oil to make an acne soap? Could you recommend percentages? Should/could I add honey and oatmeal or buttermilk or would it be best to keep it simple? I've read that honey is great for the skin and the oatmeal can mildly exfoliate. Also, what would be the recommended amount of tea tree oil for a 1 pound batch and when do I add this? At trace? How do I use the buttermilk (I actually have buttermilk powder so I would need to know how to use this.)

Thanks in advance!

Rene'

 

[Maria]

I would pass on the tea tree oil which is extremely irritating and try a little tumeric or lemon powder with a citrus EO.

 

[Guest]

I use a handmade soap for my face that contains tea tree oil and emu butter, it works pretty well in keeping my skin clear.

 

[angbaby4974]

Since I stopped using the store bought "soap" & started using only handmade soap, my face has dramatically cleared up. All of my friends are using my soap now & they all tell me that their skin has gotten better too.

I personally don't care for the smell of tea tree oil, so I am less than enthusiastic about using it in soap. I mainly keep it on hand in the first aid kit.

If you use honey it WILL heat up your temps. I've only tried honey in CPHP. I don't have a clue about the powdered buttermilk, but I've seen a few topics here & there, so maybe search the forum for buttermilk.

I usually don't post "recipes" on here because I'm still trying to get it just right, but here's one that I came up with that actually turned out pretty decent. It has great creamy lather, as well as fluffy bubbles. It was born out of my addiction, as these were the only oils I had on hand & I decided to soap with what I had...

48% lard
26% Shortening
26% Coconut

It's actually my favorite soap right now...It started out as a lard/coconut recipe, but I ended up having to add shortening because I was a little shy on the lard for the size batch that I wanted.
Always run it through a lye calc.

Oh yeah, if you add oatmeal, the finer ground the better IMO. I have varying degrees of exfoliating soaps because I have experimented with regular unground oats all the way to colloidal oatmeal. I like the texture of a finely ground, but not a powder.

 

[ChrissyB]

I have made a facial soap with Tea Tree Oil for my son who at the time had very acneic skin.
It sorted his skin out very fast.
I made the soap very similar to the recipe that angbaby posted above, except I swapped the coconut and lard around, so the coconut was the higher percentage. I find that this works well for oilier skins because it does dry some of the oil out. At trace I added TTO, and also some bentonite clay beads. These added an exfoliating texture to the soap, I am making another batch of this soap on the weekend but with just bentonite clay, not the beads. I have heard that honey can be a natural antiseptic and I have also heard of soapers having varying degrees of success with neem oil. Charcoal is also supposed to help in clearing up acneic skin, I have a batch curing right now but haven't tried it so can't help you there.
All I can go by is my own experience, and the TTO and clay really does work. My son still uses that soap, his friends are begging me for some!

 

[ilovedoxies]

A simple lard, lye and water bar works well for my adult acne. I also use a light moisturizer for oily skin in my T-zone, a more moisturizing one around my eyes, mouth, and neck.

I also use beer soap as facial soap, I have had good results with all of my homemade soaps on my face.

Be sure to run your recipe thru a soap calc to get the desired % of superfat.

 

[lunchlady2009]

THANKS!

These help tremendously.

I can't buy any more oils, so maybe I will make up some small batches with the recommendations you have here. I think I will make a honey and oatmeal with just coconut & lard and maybe one with TTO to see how they compare. I have just enough oils to make maybe 1/2-1# of each.

I still need a recommendation on how to figure out how much TTO to put in a 1# batch?

Oh and I did make a CP soap with honey- 1# and nothing major happened. I didn't insulate and i put I believe a tablespoon in the 1# batch. Not sure if that is enough (I also added oatmeal.)

I've used the SoapCalc. but is there a way to figure out additives such as the honey, buttermilk, EOs, etc.?

THANKS,
Rene'

 

[reallyrita]

I need to make acne soap, need help

Be careful with exfoliants. These can irritate the acne bumps and make the skin red. You could make a small batch of soap with the TTO and have a few folks try it out for you. I think it really helps for some folks and for others it can be an irritant. Use a very high quality TTO for sure. I have been making soap with clays in it recently....mostly for color. In one batch, I probably used a bit too much rose clay and the soap was too drying for me. I gave a bar to a young friend in her early 40's who still suffers from adult acne. She loves it. I made this soap with gm so it is gentle while being a bit drying at the same time. I hope I can duplicate it as it has really helped her. Adult acne is tricky...you don't want to dry out the skin too much as the oil glands will just work harder to replace that oil and also, exfoliants can disrupt the healing process of the bumps. I have had a lot of experience with this as my husband has suffered from acne for decades. I keep thinking he will out grow it. Now, he used my gentle GM soap with no clay but with colloidal oatmeal and his face and neck are clear for the first time ever. No more black heads even. I think he spent a lifetime trying to dry out his face and it just made matters worse.
rita

 

[Etelka]

I think he spent a lifetime trying to dry out his face and it just made matters worse.
rita

I think Rita hit it on the head. Especially with adult acne the more the oil is cleaned off the more the skin produces. The soaps above would all be good but in addition try the oil cleanser, it is not just for acne prone skin but for anyone. I use it most times and if you give it a go you should see a difference after a week. This is the recipe, no big deal:

Mix: 3/4 EVOO and 1/4 CASTOR OIL

Liberally apply to the face and message in well for 2-3 minutes, with very warm (as warm as you can stand it but not hot) wet facecloth wipe off the oil, and repeat this procedure until all the oil is wiped off the skin. With the acne you may not wish to apply moisturizer after this, but just let your skin breathe, for drier skin apply a few drops of evoo and you're done. This really deep cleanses the pores.
Etelka

 

[lunchlady2009]

I had heard that the dryer the skin the worse the acne and I really think that is my case. I'm not wanting to dry out my skin and my acne is not that bad anymore, just get's bad around that time of the month. Hubby's is pretty bad and he suffers from Rocsesia. He's 35 and is really tired of dealing with acne. I've been using Proactive for about a year now and I just ran out and was wanting to make my own and some for the fam with acne also.

So let me get this straight, I mix the EVOO & Castor oil and use this to wash instead of a soap, or after soap? Do you recommend once or twice a day? I'm very intrigued.


Sorry for all the questions. I'm a detail girl. I need it in black and white! :wink:

 

[Etelka]

So let me get this straight, I mix the EVOO & Castor oil and use this to wash instead of a soap, or after soap? Do you recommend once or twice a day? I'm very intrigued.

Yes, the mixing is correct, and you can use it once or twice a day, probably twice is better. Whether you use soap afterwards or not is entirely up to you, I don't, but I know some people dont feel good if they dont wash it off.

 

[ChrissyB]

This is called the oil cleansing method, you can google it to get some more info.
One of the girls on here recommended it to me and I tried it, and love it.
It really does work@! I know it sounds funny, but it's like the oils somehow work as a magnet and draw the oil out of your pores. It's wonderful, I was hooked after the first week, and right now my skin is better than ever. I suffer from hormonal breakouts, (I think I am going through the change!) and the OCM really does help@

 

[carebear]

For adult acne (typically not hormonal oily teenager-like skin) I make an extremely mild soap with tea tree, lavender, and neem oil. Seems to work. I would use the tea tree + lavender combined at about 1% (maybe 2 lavender: 1 tea tree). Neem oil I use at 5% - 10% of my base oils.

 

[bubblefan]

I also recently saw someone post a link to the oil cleansing method. I checked ti out and although it seems a little counter intuitive at first, I think it works. I just started 1 week ago, doing it every other day, and I have noticed a marked improvement. Much more than with the clay/tea tree oil soaps I was trying.

http://www.theoilcleansingmethod.com/

 

[bubblefan]

Hmmmm...the internet ate my last post.

As I was saying, I also recently saw a link here to an info page on the oil cleansing method. I've been doing it every other day for 1 week and have noticed a marked improvement. Much more so than with the clay/tea tree oil soaps I was trying.

http://www.theoilcleansingmethod.com

 

[lunchlady2009]

This is all fabulous information! I'm very excited to try the OCM and my hubby and SIL are also. He recently quit taking Accutane because it made his skin so dry and he was miserable. His acne is fairly bad as well as his Roscesia.

THANKS YOU ALL for this wonderful information.

I still plan on making many soaps! I guess just not for the face unless it's needed and I have the TTO if ever needed!

 

[Healinya]

I use 75% olive 25% pko. 7%sf. A small amount of ground lavender, with lavender and tea tree oil (same ratio as carebear)

I looked up a little about neem oil for facial soap - I'm going to have to get some and try it. Thanks for mentioning that

 

[lunchlady2009]

My DH is the one with the really bad acne and he didn't really like the OCM idea, so I went ahead and made a face soap for him(any excuse to make it, ha) with CO, Lard, TTO. I used my new cupcake silicone mold so they would be small. I can't wait to see how they turn out. I will post a pic tomorrow when I take them out of the mold and hopefully DH will benefit from it. That TTO smells like paint thinner to me! :mrgreen:

 

[lunchlady2009]

I also posted these in the photo gallery, but thought I would share here if I can. Here is the TTO soap I made for DH. Turned out really well. They are the size of small cupcakes and I used a silicone cupcake mold my Mom had hidden away! I think I will use this mold again for other soaps!

 

[angbaby4974]

those look really nice! I love my silicone molds!