Fresh ingredients in CP soap

[hoegarden]

Hiyo to all soapers out there, have you ever try adding fresh ingredients to your CP soaps?

For example fresh strawberry puree that you blend yourself, fresh yogurt from the fridge etc.

My thinking is, will the fresh ingredients shorten the life of the soaps? Fresh things will spoil or go unfresh ultimately. I wanted to try strawberry puree to get the nice strawberry scent (that I saw on a youtube video) but hestitating as I am unsure of the ultimate outcome.

 

[CaliChan]

No its completely fine. The food in the soap wont go bad as long as there is no chunks. Even if you wanted to add preservatives to make yourself feel better the lye would destroy it. So go for it! i used baby food because i dont have a food processor. Strawberry soap sounds really nice. But if you want it to smell like strawberries youll need to add a FO. The natural strawberry scent will not survive they lye. I do a water discount for the lye solution then add the puree at trace

 

[hoegarden]

Hi Cali, Thanks!
You make me feel more assured. How much baby food did you use? would 5% of oil be too much?

 

[CaliChan]

If thats what you feel comfortable with
In my batch i did 22.5% baby food and 15.5% water.
There was a slight spottiness because i added 2 tbsp oat flour to these but i think they still turned out very nicely. Just make sure that you have enough water to dissolve the lye into.

 

[CaliChan]

that picture also reminds me that i need to clean my camera lense haha

 

[hoegarden]

The soaps are very nice. Hope mine will ture out will. Thanks Cali.

 

[DWinMadison]

Hiyo to all soapers out there, have you ever try adding fresh ingredients to your CP soaps?

For example fresh strawberry puree that you blend yourself, fresh yogurt from the fridge etc.

My thinking is, will the fresh ingredients shorten the life of the soaps? Fresh things will spoil or go unfresh ultimately. I wanted to try strawberry puree to get the nice strawberry scent (that I saw on a youtube video) but hestitating as I am unsure of the ultimate outcome.

Interesting idea. I wonder how dehydrated strawberries would work?

 

[hoegarden]

Hi DwinMadison, you can try it and share your experience here... I will try it maybe over the next few months..

 

[Genny]

I've used fresh avocado, carrots, cucumber, yogurt, spinach, tomato paste successfully in CP. I've found that a lot of fresh fruits/vegetables turn brown; like strawberries, pomegranate juice, cranberries and some turn gray, like blueberries.

 

[chicklet]

I've used carrots in a few batches - one batch was with whole carrots that I cooked and smooshed into a thick paste, the other batches were made with baby food carrots. I use yogurt frequently in soap. I make my own using raw cow's milk, then I substitue some of the water called for in the recipe with yogurt.

 

[CaliChan]

yeah foods when a high sugar content have a tendency to brown, I was surprised when the mixed berry kept some of its purple

 

[Seventeen Soaps]

I love making my own pumpkin puree, I just use the stick blender to mash it all up after it's cooked as it's going in the soap anyway And I have also used cucumber and blueberries too. It's so much fun to experiment with food. If the food you are using has a high sugar content just make sure the soap doesn't overheat. Good luck!

 

[hoegarden]

It seems like some of you cooked the food before making it into a puree. i guess is that the food itself is too hard to be puree when uncook.

Other than pumpkin and carrot, anybody try papaya or spinach or maybe even more exotic food?

I getting so excited to start the soap earlier after seeing the responses. hopefully this weekend!

 

[Paintguru]

Silly question....what is the point of adding the food purees? What is it adding to the soap? I could see some things like goats milk and yogurt....but strawberries???

 

[Genny]

hoegarden ~ a lot of foods will be too hard to puree if uncooked. I've done spinach uncooked & pureed. Somewhere at the beginning of the thread I wrote some of the pureed foods I've soaped.

Chris ~ Some vegetables/fruits have sugars in them that add bubbles, some add some lovely natural color, some add a nice smooth lather.

 

[hoegarden]

Hi Chris, was thinking about strawberris as I came across reading about people who are sensitive to synthetic fragrance and some essential oils will not be able to use soap containing such ingredients. Thus was thinking if it can be replaced by the actual fruits. Not sure if the scent will stay as Cali did mention that the scent will not seems to stay so I will experiment it out.

 

[hoegarden]

Hi genny, yes, i saw your post. you really experiment alot. just wonder if there is even more possibilties. suddenly i think my dictionary is very limited when think about fruits and vegetables.

 

[Seventeen Soaps]

I didn't "add" the food to the soap so to speak, I used it as the water portion of the soap. Pumpkin and blueberries both add wonderful properties to the lather because of the sugars. I didn't cook the blueberries though I just pureed them. Blueberries will make your soap turn brown though but the pumpkin stays a lovely bright orange.

 

[hoegarden]

Frankly, I didn't know that sugar will add lather to soap. Never knew that sugar will create bubbles.

 

[Genny]

Frankly, I didn't know that sugar will add lather to soap. Never knew that sugar will create bubbles.

Yep. I add a TBSP of sugar to my water for almost all my batches. Gives some lovely big bubbles