This luxurious soap with roses will pamper your skin, leave it smooth and moisturized. Enhanced with rose-infused oil, rose essential oil and rose petals this homemade soap is unique in its healing and relaxing effect on the skin.
What is soap?
Soap is chemically a salt (or a mixture of salts of fatty acids) resulting from the reaction called saponification. The acid, in this case, is any fat (eg lard) and the base is NaOH or sodium hydroxide. As a by-product of this reaction is produced alcohol – glycerol (glycerin) and the main product is the salt of the fatty acid (fat) used or soap.

How does soap work?
In practice, the soap acts as a wetting agent that helps water do not merge together in droplets on the skin. The soap effectively disrupts the water hence that can easily get into the deep pores. Soap is wrapped around grains dirt, encloses them in itself and allows water to flush.
What’s the difference between homemade and commercially sold soaps
In industrial soap production, all ingredients that are not soap itself are removed. So as valuable glycerin that is very beneficial for human skin as a moisturizer and nourishing agent.
But if you make your homemade soap, the rare glycerine will stay in the soap as well as vitamins and other beneficial substances that are usually missing in commercially sold soaps

The commercial production of soaps started in 18th century till then the production of soaps was largely the concern of housewives.
If they could do it, you can do it too!.
Traditional soapmaking method (cold method) that we will use is one of the easiest as we will not use any cooker or another heating device. The saponification process will automatically occur in the following 24 hours by the heat generated in the reaction between the lye solution and oils.
If you don’t want to go through the whole soap making process but still like roses and want to enjoy them try these scrab bars with roses and beetroot powder to pamper your skin.
Alternatively, try melt and pour soap where you don’t need to deal with a lye.
This foaming bath butter recipe is a great alternative to soap and makes a wonderful foam too!
This time I decided to make a soap bar with roses
Why roses?
Roses are excellent for the skin. Thanks to their antioxidants, roses strengthen skin cells and regenerate skin tissues. They possess anti-ageing as well as healing properties. I like to use roses in skincare products such as rose water or cream with roses. Since I am so obsessed with roses I decided to use their power in soap.

What distinguishes an ordinary soap bar from soap bar with roses
- Rose oil – This highly scented DIY rose-infused oil is a must-have item in your household. It is made with ultra-rich grape seed oil and petals from Rose Damascena.
- rose essential oil – skin healer from scars to acne, rose essential oil is also great moisturizer with anti-inflammatory properties.
- Rose petals – It is not easy to add rose petals in cold process soap as the exposure to lye in the saponification process turns the bright red color of petals to brown. So I decided to use the rose petals at the end of the process on the surface.
Other ingredients:
- Olive oil
- Fractionated coconut oil
- Cocoa butter
- Beetroot powder to decorate
Color of the soap bar
My idea of the rose soap bar is its pinky color. I have tried the first version with beetroot powder as a colorant. However, it changed its pink color into brown after reaction with lye. So I decided to use the beetroot powder on the top only to decorate the soap.
You can also use beetroot powder to add naturally pink color to your lip balm.

What tools are going to need?
- one pair of resistant gloves
- eye protection to avoid caustic exposure
- small glass or plastic jar to measure the lye
- stainless steel or heat resistant glass jar to mix the lye with liquid
- heat resistant bowl or metal bowl for dissolving and mixing the oils,
- double decimal digital kitchen scale
- thermometer (for measuring the temperature of lye and oils)
- immersion blender
- double boiler
- soap mold (it is also possible to use shoe boxes)
- parchment paper to line the soap mold
How to make soap with roses
First step:
At this phaze it’s important to make sure that you have all the ingredients ready at the requested quantities. There is no place for alterations unless you make adequate adjustments to the recipe and recalculate the quantities in soapcalc. Each oil needs a different amount of lye to saponify and therefore the precision in ingredients as well their quantities are imperative to succeed.

Second step:
Start with the rose-infused oil. If you already have rose oil ready than as per the recipe the carrier oil should be grape seed oil. If you used other carrier oil than you need either recalculate the recipe and replace the formula with your carrier oil or you need to make new rose oil with the grapeseed oil as per this recipe. The color of rose petals might also be reflected in the final color of oil which might give a nice color to your soap.
Third step:
Using decimal scale measure the precise amount of water into a heat resistant jar. If you want to add additional power of roses you can replace pure water with rose water.

Fourth step:
Now wear your protective gloves and goggles and measure precisely the exact amount of lye into a glass jar and put it on the side.
Fifth step:
Please pay attention to this step and SLOWLY POUR THE LYE INTO THE WATER!!! This is very important to do exactly this, not the other way around. I did it in the small batches, stirred a bit and waited till the lye was completely dissolved. Then I added another batch. Please note that during the process there are very intensive fumes coming out of the mixture so keep your window open and inhale out of the direct contact with the fume. Once all the lye dissolves, the jar should be very hot. Put it on the safe place out of the reach and label it. Just make sure nobody else manipulate with the jar. You need to wait till the mixture cool down which takes approx. 1 hour.

Sixth step:
Take off your protective equipment and start to measure the oily parts. Again try as precisely as possible to measure olive oil, coconut oil, rose oil and cocoa butter.
Using double boiler melt the cocoa butter and mix it with other oily parts. Put it on the side for the mixture to cool down.

Seventh step:
Now it’s time to prepare your molds. My molds are wooden so I usually lined them with parchment paper so the soap is easy to remove. If you use silicone molds you can skip this step.
Eighth step:
Check with thermometer that the temperatures of both parts – liquid and oily are almost the same. Slowly pour the lye solution into the bowl with oils and mix till smooth. It takes some time, depending on the strength of your blender. I usually switch the blender on and off to prevent overheating of the blender.

Ninth step:
Now it is time to add essential oils. I am using rose essential oil to boost the rose power but feel free to use any essential oil you like
Tenth step:
Pour the mixture into the molds and decorate with rose petals and beetroot powder as per your liking or look at the video.


Eleventh step:
The saponification process takes up to 24 hours and during this time you want to keep the soap in a warm place. I like to cover it with a towel and keep it safe.
Twelve step:
The next day remove the soap from mold and cut it into shapes you like – slices, squares, etc. If you wait a couple of days longer you might have difficulties to cut the soap as it might be too hard.

Thirteens step:
YOu need to wait another 3 weeks for saponification process to be finished and after that, you can finally enjoy your homemade soap made from scratch. Exactly like housewives used to make in 17 century. Congratulation if you managed to come to this end.
Still need some help?
The soap-making is a relaxing and creative process however can be a bit tricky especially if you just started. If you are a beginner and still need to answer some questions, here is a great article from Porch covering most Q&A, tips, and ideas from the experts that will surely help you in your soap-making journey. Simply beyond herbs has been featured as one of their experts.

How to make soap with roses

This luxurious soap with roses will pamper your skin, leave it smooth and moisturized. Enhanced with rose-infused oil, rose essential oil and rose petals this homemade soap is unique in its healing and relaxing effect on the skin.
Materials
Tools
- gloves
- eyewear
- small glass or plastic jar where you can measure the lye
- Larger heatproof jar for mixing the lye with liquid
- Precise kitchen scale - digital
- Bowl for mixing the soap (glass, plastic or stainless steel)
- Rubber spatula
- Blender
- Soap mold
- Parchment paper to line the soap mold
Instructions
- Pour the exact amount of water or rosewater as per the recipe.
- Put your gloves and goggles on.
- weigh the lye as precisely as you can on the double decimal digital scale and put it on the side.
- Now, this is a very important step so pay attention SLOWLY POUR THE LYE INTO THE WATER!!! Never the other way around. Make it in the small steps, first half, stir and wait till it dissolves and then repeat the same with the other half.
- Measure precisely olive oil, coconut and rose oil as well as cocoa butter. Warm coconut oil and cocoa butter in a double boiler, mix it with olive and rosehip oil and let it cool down to 35 C (100 F)
- Prepare the mold. Line the mold from all sides with the parchment paper
- Once the temperatures of the oily part and liquid part are fairly close to each other slowly pour the lye solution into the container of oils.
- Mix it well. Use a hand blender to make the mixture smooth. It should not take longer than 10 minutes by switching the blender on and off to prevent overheating of the blender.
- Add rose essential oil to the mixture and mix it well. Pour the final soap mixture into the mold. Smooth the top with the spatula and add rosehips on the top.
- I cover the mold with soap mixture with a towel and let it sit for at least 24 hours.
- Remove the soap from the mold and cut it into bars.
- wait for another 1 month for the soap to cure to start to enjoy your perfect soap!
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I was always intrigued by the idea of making my own soap….but I never got around to it. This soap sounds really luxurious…maybe I should try this!? Thanks for the recipe….and I love your pics!
I’ve never thought about making my own soap but it looks totally doable. Love the rose in here and how natural all the ingredients are.
This is truly beautiful! Rose is something I haven’t worked with yet in soap and this is so inspiring! Thank you for the quality tutorial.
Soap making is one thing that I haven’t tried yet, surprisingly! But this recipe is so intriguing and it turned out beautiful! I think the cold process method seems much less intimidating than hot process! Maybe I’ll finally get up the courage to make a couple batches this summer! 🙂
I absolutely love anything rose, and this is beautiful soap!! I love soap making, but I haven’t done it in a few years. This recipe has inspired me 🙂 Thank you !
This looks so lovely! I am definitely going to try this!
Hello,
Does this recipe make one or two soap mold’s worth of soap? I’ve never made soap before, but would love to try this recipe! Thanks so much,
Jessie
Hi Jessie, a typical size of soap mold is 1200 g (42.3 ounces) which is 4 times more than the quantity in the recipe. Just multiply each ingredient times 4 to fill 1 full soap mold. I just made mini soap bars:)
Hi, I found that the soap doesn’t really smell like rose… I used rose water and rose oil, but the other oils and cacao butter over powered it. I don’t know if I did something wrong? But it just smells like chocolate-ish olives. Which is honestly a fine smell, just not what I was goin’ for.
Hi Mathias, did you use rose essential oil in the recipe? It has significant effect on the scent.
Thank you so much for your recipes. If you want to colour your soap naturally, I found macerating red rose petals in the oil produced a lovely old-fashioned, faded pink soap. But if you would like a red rose soap, macerating the root of ordinary garden rhubarb in the oil will do just that. The chopped up roots coloured the oil a deep yellow, but on contact with the lye and the high pH, it produced a beautiful dark red soap, an intense raspberry jam colour initially, which has faded only slightly, and 4 weeks later is now the colour of hibiscus tea. Tanya of Lovely Greens recipe using Himalayan rhubarb root inspired me to try what I had in the garden and it worked beyond my wildest dreams…thank you, Tanya, also 🙂