Shea Butter Soap Base

Shea butter base is the one to reach for when you want a creamy, opaque bar that isn't a milk soap. It is off-white with a medium lather.

Colour comes out pastel, which suits soft looks, and the base carries dark additions just as well. In the recipe book, a starry night bar uses activated charcoal for a deep black, flecked with white kaolin clay and dusted with silver mica. Another mixes Dead Sea mud into the base and presses dried seaweed into the bottom of each cavity.

It takes added oils and texture too: the coconut and vanilla recipe stirs melted coconut oil, sugar and shredded coconut into the melted base. For marbled bars, pour it alongside our goat milk base and draw a skewer through both.