Cucumber disaster!

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Delks

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Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum and started making my own soap only two weeks ago! I absolutely love it and after a few good, simple batches I have started to experiment a little...

I have tried to make a simple cucumber and lemon soap with this recipe:

500ml extra virgin olive oil
100ml coconut oil
80g lye
195g cucumber juice
5g lemon E/O (I only wanted a faint smell)

The soap traced well and I thought 'why not add extra cucumber loveliness!?' and added a handful of grated cucumber. 24 hours later, I have now unmoulded and cut the soap and there are bright big green chunks of cucumber :cry:

So my question is: is the soap still good and useable?

I worry that the cucumber is going to go off soon and smell/rot within the soap.

Lesson learnt: do not add chunks of cucumber to soap.

image.jpg
 
Welcome, Delks! :wave:

Delks said:
Lesson learnt: do not add chunks of cucumber to soap.

Ditto that 100%. If it makes you feel any better, you are in good company. :) Many of us have made the same mistake somewhere along the road in our own soap-making journeys.

When it comes to using food in soaps, always keep this adage in mind: juices and very finely pureed foods are good- they will keep nicely in soap without spoiling- but chunks are bad. Chunks of food will eventually go moldy sooner or later.

If it were me, I would use the soap until I started seeing mold or smelling any off-scents. Once either one of those rear their ugly heads, I'd toss it.


IrishLass :)
 
Why not chunk up the soap, add a little liquid and cook it in an old Crockpot? That should take care of the cucumber chunks.
 
I'd do both; keep a couple of bars to see what happens over time and re-batch the rest.

Even if in future you decided to puree the cucumber or any other high-speed content food, make sure to count it as part of your water replacement from/for your lye solution.
 
Thank you! That's very helpful!

Yes, that was a typo - I measured everything in grams.
 

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