Fresh berries and disaster, maybe?

[soapandwine]

Hi everyone,

A couple of days ago, I decided to use fresh strawberries and blueberries to make a soap. I pureed the fruit and pushed it through a fine mesh giving me a very smooth and creamy sauce. I doesn't look too good and it's a bit oily after cutting. I don't really know if the soap is bad or not, perhaps it just needs to dry and cure a while.

I added a couple of tablespoons of my berry sauce and some red colorant to about a third of the mix so as to create a swirl like effect (I thought). The top looks beautiful. While at gel stage, it looked so nice I celebrated having a glass of wine. But when I cut the soap, no so nice inside... You can see the top of the soap actually looks a lovely pink, with some rosemary sprinkled.

Big question: can this soap be used? the part without the berry sauce looks like soap and it's nice, but the berry part doesn't feel like soap, but maybe that's just the nature of adding fresh fruit to it. did I add too much? :cry:

Recipe:
30oz Olive Oil
11.25oz Coconut Oil
0.75oz Castor Oil (I had that much and wanted to finish it)
7oz Sweet Almond Oil
3oz Shea Butter
7.2oz Lye
13.3oz Water
4oz Coconut Milk (added at light trace)
2tbsp Berries mix (added at light trace to about a third of mix)
20 drops of red color (fd&c and added at light trace to about a third of mix)
Fresh rosemary sprinkled on top.

FYI, I licked the soaps all over and no zap.

 

[MagiaDellaLuna]

I got that strange texture and feel to soap when I added anything with a high acidity level, Hibiscus powder being one organic which I will NEVER, EVER use again. Strawberries have Ascorbic Acid in them, so perhaps that is the culprit.

The soap should be usable after a long cure.

 

[BakingNana]

I love your spirit of adventure, Jaaret. What did the soap taste like? I think it looks cool.

 

[dubnica]

I love your spirit of adventure, Jaaret. What did the soap taste like? I think it looks cool.

LOL. After my failed try to use chocolate and cofee in my soap I will stick with mica and FO. I am done with food additives...

 

[Sunny]

Hi everyone,

A couple of days ago, I decided to use fresh strawberries and blueberries to make a soap.

I have had bad luck with purees myself. Soaps that I have made with pumpkin and squash puree have always turned out really oily. I think it's okay to use puree but maybe use very little. I was trying to use 1/4 to 1/2 of my water amount as puree and it has turned out oily on all three batches.

The first batch, with squash, is one of my best soaps yet... Wonderful lather and just great. But, it has/had oil POCKETS in it... little bubbles of oil in the loaf that had to be drained out. This loaf is now at least 4 months old and still has oil sitting inside some of the individual bars. You don't find out until you're in the shower and have used the bar to the point of the oil pocket!

 

[Layne]

question, CP or HP?
as a fruity soaper myself.......
dont realy think you used enough of the berries to realy cause any issues
at all.
do an author (here in the forums) search on me and youll find all kinda fruity subjects, lol
I love soaping with fruits. lol
It might be the process you used, all of mine are CPHP, and fruits are added after major cook off.
I do a Blue Berry Goats milk with about 10 ozs of berries per 5lbs, approxamently. Beautiful soap stays a nice creamy purple long as not exposed to sun light, ie sample in kitchen window faided.
Just did a Honeydew mellon soap, yep whole mellon was used.
Even sun dried the seeds, ground to exfoliant powder and added them.
mm mm mmm nice scratchy bar with a fiberous green look and a OMG Honeydew nervana smell.
Even taste like it smells....well at least for a couple secounds, lol
soon as I get around to cutting it I'll make a post on it and put up pictures.
Also remember when using fruits discount the water to match, like if it calls for 40 ozs of liquid you would have a 30 ozs water/10ozs berries ect.
Realy looks like yours was CP that wasnt mixed well at trace or something.
But read up and good luck on all future fruityness

 

[doubletake]

Berry Soap

question, CP or HP?
I do a Blue Berry Goats milk with about 10 ozs of berries per 5lbs, approxamently. Beautiful soap stays a nice creamy purple long as not exposed to sun light, ie sample in kitchen window faided.

HI!
I am going to try a really small batch using blackberry puree....what sort of recipe did you use, is there one that is better than others for incorporating real fruit?
Thanks!
Jaclynn