Heart-Shaped Pink Clay Soap Recipe (2024)

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January 25, 2019January 30, 2024

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Make pink heart-shaped soap with French pink clay and beautifully scented essential oils. A lovely choice as a Valentine’s Day soap recipe. This cold-process soap recipe makes about six bars and includes full soap making instructions.

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This handmade pink heart-shaped soap is silky, a natural color, and scented with a floral blend of essential oils. It includes rose geranium, complemented with soothing lavender, citrusy bergamot, and earthy clary sage. It’s a gorgeous and calming scent that puts a smile on my face, and I hope it does for you too. I’ve shared this recipe as a Valentine’s Day soap for several reasons, not least because they’re shaped like hearts. You’ll need a silicone mold to recreate that aspect of them, and more on that is further below. More importantly, this soap is one to share because of its aromatherapy benefits. I created the essential oil blend in this recipe to relax and inspire an open heart and mind.

French Pink Clay Soap Recipe

I use natural ingredients to color handmade soap, and one of the best and longest-lasting is clay. Clay is a naturally mined element that comes in various shades, from blue to green, to pink. French pink clay is a mixture of red and white clay, and in soap recipes creates a soft and feminine pink color. You can see many more clay colors in my piece on how to naturally color soap with clay.

In most of my soap recipes, I recommend using less water than you might see in other recipes. It’s because I find that it stops the formation of soda ash, a powdery white material that forms on the surface of the soap. However, when using clay, it’s always wise to use a little more than usual because clay can draw moisture in and cause soap to crack, just like it does in a face mask.

Essential Oils for Pink Soap

Fragrance plays a big part in how we experience the world, connect with memories, and even enjoy food. It can also help soothe the mind and body, which is one aspect of aromatherapy. Aromatherapists work with oils that can help with balancing mind and body, treating anxiety and depression, or helping refresh a tired mind and body. In Eastern traditions, balancing the heart chakra can also be aided by essential oils. Here are some of them, including the ones in this soap recipe.

Bergamot
Chamomile
Jasmine
Lavender
Marjoram
Melissa balm
Neroli
Orange
Rose (Rosa damascena)
Rose Geranium (Pelargonium graveolens)
Sandalwood
Ylang Ylang

Although Clary Sage isn’t considered a heart chakra oil, it’s an earthy, floral base that compliments the others. Just perfect for this pink heart-shaped soap recipe.

Valentine’s Day Soap Recipe

Decorating and giving these pretty aromatherapy soaps can be a special way to show you care. I think making this Valentine’s Day soap recipe is a unique gift idea, but of course, they could be given any time of the year. Imagine how happy you’d make a friend or family member who loves floral scents and who needs a little support. Better yet, think of someone who may have been unkind to you or who keeps losing their patience with people in general. A little heart chakra healing probably wouldn’t do them any harm, and you might feel better for trying the heal the conflict.

As for decorating, you can leave them plain and unadorned or sprinkle a pinch of lavender buds on top. A tip on how to do that without having them turn brown is in the recipe. Packaging these heart-shaped soaps in a small gift box with shredded paper or lace makes them extra special. I have even more ideas for naturally packaging soap over here.

More Clay Soap Recipes

Pink Himalayan Salt Soap Recipe
Cambrian Blue Clay Soap Recipe
French Green Clay Soap Recipe
Make Bath Bombs with Pink French Clay

Pink Heart-Shaped Soap Recipe

Lovely Greens

Pink Heart-Shaped Soap Recipe with pink clay for color and scented with a blend of floral essential oils.This 454g /1lb soap recipe will make about six bars. It also has a 33% water discount and a 5% superfat that will be made up mainly of rich shea butter.

5 from 7 votes

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Author Lovely Greens

Cost $20

Equipment

Materials

Lye solution

63 g Sodium hydroxide 2.22 oz
126 g Distilled water 4.44 oz
1 tsp Pink/Rose Clay 5 g

Solid oils

114 g Coconut oil (refined) 4.01 oz
68 g Shea butter 2.4 oz

Liquid oils

227 g Olive oil 8.02 oz (light-colored olive oil)
23 g Castor oil 0.81 oz

Ingredients to add after Trace

23 g Shea butter 0.81 oz (melted)
1½ tsp Rose Geranium essential oil 7.5 g
¾ tsp Bergamot essential oil 2 g
½ tsp Lavender essential oil 2 g
½ tsp Clary Sage essential oil 1 g

Decorating the tops (optional)

Witch hazel (optional)
Lavender buds (optional)
Rose petals (optional)

Instructions

Preparation

I always advise getting everything prepared and measured before starting to make soap. Get your equipment set out, measure out all the ingredients. This includes the clay in a heat-proof jug, water in another jug, lye in a jar, coconut oil in the main soaping pan, shea butter in a heat-proof dish or small pan, andliquid oils should be in a kitchen bowl or jug. You can also pre-measure your essential oils if you wish.
As for apparel. You should wear closed-toe shoes, a long sleeve shirt, hair pulled back, and wearing eye protection and rubber/latex/vinyl gloves.

Mix the Lye Solution

Soap making is chemistry so this step needs particular care. Making sure that you're wearing eye protection and gloves, pour a little water from the jug into the clay. Mix it well so that it forms a paste. Pour a quarter cup more water in and mix until it's dispersed. Then pour the rest of the water in.
Next pour all ofthe lye crystals into the water in a well-ventilated place. Outdoors is best. Stir immediately and thoroughly with a stainless steel or silicone spoon until dissolved.
Allow to cool outside or place it in the sink or a basin of water to help it cool down. There will be steam and heat when you mix them together so be prepared.

Melt the Solid oils

Just after you mix the lye solution, put the pan of oils over low heat. Stir while they’re melting to speed things up. After they’re mostly melted, take the pan off the heat and stir until the last few pieces of oil melt. When fully melted, stir in the liquid oils (but not the essential oils)

Taking the Temperature

The ideal temperature for this recipe is 100°F / 38°C. Using a thermometer, or better yet a digital temperature gun, take the temps of both the lye water and the pan of oils. They should be within 10 degrees of one another and around the temperature mentioned.
Before moving to the next step, you need to melt the reserved shea butter. You can carefully use the microwave or melt it on very low heat until liquid.

Blending

Back to your soap. When the temperatures are just right, pour the lye solution into the pan of oils through a sieve. It will catch any bits of undissolved lye or chunks of clay. Now stick blend. You're going to alternate stirring and pulsing until you reach 'Trace'. Trace is when the consistency of your soap batter is like warm drizzly custard.

Adding the Essential Oil

When your soap is at trace, stir in the melted shea butter and mix thoroughly. Next, add the essential oils and keep stirring until it's all mixed in. It may begin to firm up quickly at this point so try to be quick about it yourself.

Molding

Pour the soap batter into your mold(s) and either cover with towels or oven process. For towel insulation: wrap the soap up, both from underneath and over the top with a big fluffy towel. You can line the top of your soap with cling film to keep the cloth fibers out. Leave it wrapped like this for 24-48 hours.

Decorating

You can pop the soap out of the molds after 48 hours. After two days, saponification is pretty much complete.Let the soap dry out for four weeks before using or decorating. This process is called ‘curing’ and I have a great piece on what to do over here.
Decorating the tops of soap with dried herbs or flowers when it's wet or fresh can lead to your botanicals turning brown (more on that here). If you wait until it's cured then they'll stay colorful for longer. To get dried lavender buds or rose petals to stick, spray the tops of your soap with witch hazel and then sprinkle the flower petals on top. When the witch hazel dries up, they'll stick to the soap like magic.
If you’d like to give your soap as gifts, I also have some ideas on how to naturally wrap soap for gifts.

Notes

Lastly, are you a beginner soapmaker looking for more guidance on how to make handmade soap? Enroll in the Natural Soapmaking for Beginners Online Course to get up to speed quickly. You’ll learn all about soap ingredients and equipment and be guided through step-by-step soap recipe videos. Learn more

Tried this project?Let us know how it was!

Tanya Anderson

Tanya Anderson of Lovely Greens is an organic gardener, soapmaker, author, YouTube creator and the main writer of this website. She's passionate about growing plants for skincare, soapmaking, and seasonal eating.

Hi Tanya,
New soap maker here, and obsessed with your recipes. Thank you for sharing.
I am excited to try this recipe, but it’s the first time I’ve heard of towel insulation or oven process. Is this necessary? I’ve made two different soap batches (before finding your website) and I didn’t do either of those things for the 2 days before taking soap out of molds. Will those batches be okay?
Once I poured soap into molds, I left them in a room, and would open the window some days, just to get ventilation.
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1. Hi Jamie, insulating soap isn’t necessary, but you do it if you want the color to really come through. Insulating soap helps keep the heat in the soap for longer once you pour it. This steady warmth pushes the soap to go through gel phase which deepens the color. Hope this helps :)
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Hi! Loving recipe for Valentine’s 😍
If you add the water to the clay and allow it to rest for 15/30m., you’ll have a lumps-free paste.
Adding some red cornflower petals will enhance the romantism without color fadind or browning… 😜
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Hi there, I was just wondering is it possible to sub the clay for a different clay in this recipe? As well as, shea butter for mango butter?
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1. Absolutely! You have your pick of clays to use and I have more guidance on clay soap making if you’d like to learn more.
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Hello,
I have used this soap recipe successfully before and have a question about the clay: if I were to add clay to my wool wash soap, would it the colour stain the garments? Possibly a stupid question sorry!
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1. Not a stupid question at all :) Clay isn’t a dye and colors soap by suspending in the soap rather than dyeing it. Clay won’t dye fabric but theoretically, it could stain it just like soil can. I’d use only a little or none at all for soap destined for garment use.
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  1. Thank you very much!
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Hi,
Total beginner here – I was wondering about the witch hazel – your recipe for the rosemary blue clay specifies rubbing alcohol instead and wondered which was better or whether it doesn’t matter. If I used rubbing alcohol in this recipe or witch hazel in the rosemary one would I have to change anything else?
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1. Witch hazel is predominantly alcohol so you can use either witch hazel or isopropyl alcohol to spray the tops of your soap. It’s an optional step to help reduce the chances of soda ash on soap by stopping air from interacting with the wet soap. Both will evaporate and by that time, the chances of soda ash forming are low. It’s a good step to follow if you live in a humid climate.
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Hello I am looking over the recipe. so you add the 68gm of shea butter to all the oils before adding the lye solution and you add the 23gm of shea butter after trace also?
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1. Yes, although you can add all the shea butter to the solid oils to melt. You could also melt and add all of the shea at trace if you wish. The idea here is to try to preserve some of the shea butter as a superfatting oil.
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Hi I’ve been meaning to try this recipe unscented first as it will only be my third time working with CP soaps. I was wondering, will it be okay to add 1tsp sodium lactate to this recipe? I’m afraid it might affect the clay, but the last time I worked with clays without sodium lactate, I had a hard time pulling them out of the mold. I have few molds and I wanted to make a few batches so it would really be helpful if I can take them out the soonest possible time.
Would really appreciate if you can answer this question even though years have passed! Congrats on your book!
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1. Hi Jae, and yes, feel free to use sodium lactate. However, this recipe should not have any issues coming out of standard silicone molds. If you’re using hard plastic molds, please know that they are not suitable for cold process soaps. They’re specifically for melt and pour and are a nightmare to get any soap out of. Hope this helps :)
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Hi,
I made this batch for the second time yesterday. However I realised whilst it was left to cure that I completely forgot to add the shea butter after trace. As it would be added after trace, will this batch still be safe to use. It is exactly as per your recipe just without the shea butter.
I checked an online lye calculator and the measurements of all other oils matches up to the sodium hydroxide amount if it was 1% superfat?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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1. Hi Tom, a 1% superfat will be very drying on the skin. For body soap, we aim for 5-8%, while 1% is used for washing dishes. I suggest that you grate the bars up and rebatch them with the shea butter.
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These look beautiful. I always get a pinky beige color when using pink or rose clay. Perhaps I am not using enough? We are always telling newbies to run every recipe through a lye calculator because people can make typos. So may I suggest you include percentages along with weights of ingredients? Thank you!
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1. Hi Debbie, small and exact recipes are easier for beginners to use which is why I share them. If a more experienced soap maker wanted to make a different sized batch, they know where to find and use the SoapCalc :)
  As for your color difference — it may be down to the manufacturer you use or if you’re using EVOO. Extra virgin olive oil has a characteristic greenish-tinge that interferes with some soap colors.
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Hello, Can I use Geranium instead of Rose Geranium in the recipe?
Thanks so much for a great informative and inspiring website!
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1. They are the same thing in many cases — look for the botanical name ‘Pelargonium graveolens’
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What is the reason for adding the shea butter at trace?
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1. To reduce the chance of it saponifying and becoming soap. That way it will stay free floating in the soap as a moisturizing oil.
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  1. Could the same thing be done with other soap recipes which have shea butter in them?
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    1. Sure thing, as you’ve learned in the soap making workshop you can add all kinds of things to a base soap recipe :)
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I love the color and the essential oils sound lovely :)
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Hi, although I really love this soap, I was wondering if you could recommend a floral mix of fragrances which I could use for wedding favours without using Rose Geranium which is so expensive. Thanks very much x
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1. Hi Kathryn. Rose Geranium is a lovely scent and it would be a shame to lose out on it in this recipe. If you wanted to, you could make up for the rose geranium amount with lavender essential oil. It’s more affordable and would work well.
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If you have any questions on how to make this natural Valentine’s Day soap, please ask :)
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1. Hi, I was wondering if you could suggest any other floral fragrance combinations which are not quite as expensive as Rose Geranium, please. I’m hoping to make wedding favours for my niece. Thanks very much.
  Reply