Adding Premade Dead Sea Mud Mask to CP Soap

[Noodge]

So I've been gifted a big ol' tub of dead sea mud mask for my birthday, but I'm not exactly a mud-mask kinda guy (should I be offended that I was given this? My skin's not that bad lol) and I've seen people use dead sea mud in soap, so naturally I wanted to try!

...But that was the powder. This is all pre-mixed up with:
Shea butter, sunflower oil, aloe vera, vegetable glycerin, jojoba oil, hickory bark extract, calendula oil, water, and xanthan gum

Now quite a few of those ingredients work well in soap, but I'm still wary of making a huge mess and wasting ingredients

So what can I expect?
Will the oils in this saponify, meaning I should use a lower superfat that usual?
Would the xanthan gum royally muck it up?
How much would I even add? And when? I usually do small batches with 1.5lbs oil.

Any thoughts/insights are welcome!

(Who am I kidding, I'm probably gonna go ahead and wing it anyway, love a good experiment me )

 

[Hendejm]

I have no idea if it will work but I have feeling it won’t ! But I, too, like a good experiment so I say go for it!! You may come up with something really cool!

 

[Dawni]

The only "non soapy" thing I can see is the xanthan gum, but that's just fermented sugar so...

I say it'll work. If it was me, because I HP, I'll add towards the end of my cook, just in case the goodies are retained. I'll start with a tablespoon.

What's the consistency like? If it's more like the plain dead sea mud then maybe the little bit of additives won't affect the rest of your recipe much? But still be prepared for a slightly higher unaccounted for superfat.

 

[amd]

I think it will work. I've used coconut milk with xanthan gum (er... or maybe guar gum?)... anyways, I believe gums are typically added in smallish amounts so it really doesn't impact the soap. It's up to you if you want it in the soap.

Depending on how much mud you're using, you could make an adjustment of 1% superfat, or just have a slightly higher super fatted soap.

 

[cmzaha]

When I use DSM I include it in the as part of the liquid requirement. I agree that I would lower the superfat by 1% since your mixture of DSM includes oils and butters. DSM can be drying which is why I would not lower the superfat more than 1% for the first test

 

[Noodge]

Thanks for the replies guys! Very informative!

What I ended up doing was splitting my batch in half, and added 2tbsp of the mud to one of the halves at emulsion. I used a 33% lye concentration and a 5% superfat for a mix of oils that was 30% coconut oil and 70% olive oil (which I usually superfat at 7%, so hopefully that will balance out a bit)

I assumed the xanthan gum would probably accelerate the trace and oh boy did it. Did a vague approximation of a drop swirl - honestly thought it would darken more than it did!

Will update with pics once it's out of the mould

 

[Noodge]

Welp, I'm a dingus and forgot to update y'all, so here it is, 6(ish) weeks later

This was such a fun experiment! The swirls with the mud stayed a lot softer than the rest of the loaf, making cutting into bars a pain in the backside. I waited until the lighter parts were almost too hard to cut, but the muddy parts still stuck to my cutting wire like nobody's business! You might be able to make out in the photo some raised lines in the darker parts from when I pulled the bars apart and they really, really didn't want to let go.

The dark flecks are from where I didn't quite manage to blend the mud in all the way since it accelerated so much, but I don't hate the way it turned out. It looks kinda stony. I like it!

One thing I did notice is that these seemed to get DOS on the underside after about 2 weeks. I think. There's some orange/rusty speckling on about half of them, but only on the lowest edge. Might not be DOS but no idea what else it could be! And did I get a pic of that to help diagnose it?

Course I didn't

Anyway, 6 weeks later, the texture all evened out and seemed to cure to the same hardness, so I'm just waiting to finish my last bar of soap out so I can give one of these a trial run!

Yay science

 

[Dawni]

Thanks for the update. My dead sea mud swirls stayed softer than the rest of the soap longer as well. Probably coz clays absorb water?

You're right, the stony look is cool

Did you get the spots only on the bottom? What were your soaps curing on top of? If it was metal it could be a reaction...

 

[Noodge]

My dead sea mud swirls stayed softer than the rest of the soap longer as well. Probably coz clays absorb water?

I'm guessing so!

And yeah just the bottom, I cure all my soaps on a wooden shelving unit and don't rotate them as much as I probably should

I thought it might be some of the wood stain coming off on the soap for some reason (ended up giving the whole thing a deep clean, but nothing came up) but it was just the odd fleck of orange here and there that looks suspiciously like DOS... no idea!

 

[DWinMadison]

I brought some back from Israel and have wondered about using it as well. Thanks for trying this and reporting on it. I was planning to incorporate it into the oils before adding the lye. Probably a dumb idea, but I was worried about having time to emulsify it once the lye goes in.