Soap Making: How to Make Gelato Soaps (Recipe #1)

A customer emailed a few weeks ago wanting me to post a recipe for Gelato Soaps. Hmmm... some of you may be wondering "What is Gelato?" Gelato is a type of Italian ice cream (slightly lower in fat). However, our Gelato soaps are calorie free and a perfect gift for the holiday season.

We have a couple of variations on the recipe. This is our Gelato Recipe #1. We'll be posting recipe #2 recipe in a few days along with a short tutorial on both.

Recipe #1 is made with the addition of our whipped body butter. It offers a nice creamy texture to the gelato and makes for a wonderful body wash. We even included some of our spa quality sea salts as an exfoliant (and some sugar as well to work as a scrub). The addition of citric acid gives a bit of fizz, but the Gelato isn't really meant to be a bath fizzie. It's more about moisturizing.

If using this recipe, I definitely suggest letting the mixture set up for 2-3 hours before using the ice cream scoop. It was hard to get the mixture to drop out of the scooper until it was slightly firm.

Gelato Recipe #1:

• 1 Cup Sodium Bicarbonate



• 1/2 cup Citric Acid



• 1/2 cup Spa Quality Salts



• 1/2 cup sugar (optional)



• 2-3 teaspoons fragrance oil



• 2 tablespoons melted body butter



• 1/4 teaspoon borax (found at most every grocery store in the laundry section)



• Soap colorant. We used our DWP colorant but any of our cosmetic grade liquid gel colors would work. You will want to mix the color into the melted body butter.

Put all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Incorporate ingredients thoroughly.

Next, combine the melted body butter, fragrance and color. Mix well and then slowly drizzle over the dry ingredients. You will want to put on latex (or something similar) to mix the wet into the dry ingredients. Squish the mixture until is looks like the consistency of wet sand. The mixture should hold together when squeezed in the palm of your hand (see above photo).

Using an ice cream scoop, scoop out balls of the gelato soap mixture. We were able to get 7-8 balls from the above recipe.

To Use:

Slice off a section of the gelato to use for your bath or shower. There are so many different ways to display your Gelato soap. Consider using a lidded plastic sundae cup along with a ice cream tasting spoon. Or, just display on a soap dish with a small cheese spreader. Use the cheese spreader to cut off serving portions of the Gelato Soap.