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Pure neem oil is an ingredient rather than a finished product. These are the three things our customers make with it, in order of effort.
1. A leaf-shine spray
For each litre of warm water: 5 ml neem oil and 1 to 2 ml Ourons liquid soap. Warm the oil until it pours, stir it into the soap to a smooth paste, add the water a little at a time, then pour into a sprayer and shake until milky. Mist lightly over houseplant leaves, morning or evening, and let them dry out of strong light. Full method on the leaf-shine spray page. If you would rather not mix, our water-soluble neem stirs straight into water.
2. A wood and leather balm
Melt one part beeswax into four parts of a light carrier oil (sweet almond or grapeseed), take it off the heat and stir in neem at about one part in ten of the oil. Pour into a tin and let it set. Rub a little into bare wood, tool handles or old leather and buff. Test on an offcut first; neem darkens pale woods and some leathers. More on carriers and ratios on the carrier oils page.
3. A cold-process soap bar
Neem is a hard oil in a soap recipe: high in oleic, stearic and palmitic acids, so it gives a firm bar and a steady lather when blended with lighter oils. Keep it between 5 and 20 per cent of the oil weight; above that the smell takes over and the bar turns pale green. Its saponification value is about 0.139 for sodium hydroxide, so run the recipe through a lye calculator before you start. Melt-and-pour makers can simply stir it into the melted base at 1 to 5 per cent.
Working with the oil
- It sets solid below about 20 °C. Stand the bottle in a bowl of hot tap water for ten minutes; do not microwave it.
- The smell is strong and softens but never disappears in a finished bar or candle.
- Wear gloves for large amounts; it stains fabric.