Fresh additives in the CP

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

volya

Active Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2011
Messages
41
Reaction score
1
My husband asked me a question: why waste the good produce if the lye will burn all the goodness anyway and all that will be left only fiber and maybe a color. Isn't better just to eat those strawberries, bananas, avocado and drink the beer, champagne and wine? :?: First, I wanted to argue with him that it should be left some vitamins and good stuff, but didn't know it for sure, so i had nothing to say. So, my question - are there anything good left in the soap after adding these fresh food additives that will be beneficial for skin (like vitamins and minerals)? I tried to find some info online but my attempt was not successful. Maybe you guys here know something more that I and my DH? :-| Please, share the links if you can find something that answers my question.
Thank you!
 
He says "why?" I say "why not?" But the sugars in the alcohols help with the bubbles - they make the lather nice and fluffy. Plus, once its opened, it will go bad and in my house, we just don't drink enough so it sits, goes flat and rather than letting it go to waste and toss it, I use it in soap. I made a HP soap with Shiner Bock (which is formulated to have more sugars in it than most other beers on the market), and with the Kentucky Bourbon FO I used it comes out smelling like brown sugar. Personally, I don't like using food like avocado, pumpkin, etc., so someone else who DOES use them can answer that part.
 
I honestly don't know if any vitamins & minerals survive saponification and I don't know if it would matter really since it's soap & really wouldn't be left on the skin long enough to be beneficial anyways. I like adding different fruits/vegetables for color purposes and sometimes they sound exotic ;)

Vanessa's right about the alcohol, the sugars help nicely in increasing bubbles :)
 
He says "why?" I say "why not?" But the sugars in the alcohols help with the bubbles - they make the lather nice and fluffy.

Good to know, Vanessa! Does it refer to beers only or wines and champagne are good as well? I never tried with them and just gathering the info before my first trial :-?. You mentioned the beer brand but how about the wine and champagne - are those bubbles forming too? Are there any brand/type preferences? I'm sure the experienced soap-makers know it :)
 
Wine and champagne do it as well. Its the sugars present in the alcohol that do it. And even if they don't taste like it, there are plenty of sugars in wine & champagne, not to mention the beer. Honestly, I can't tell the difference between the Shiner Bock soap and the version of it I made with the el cheapo Natural Light beer.
 
I honestly don't know if any vitamins & minerals survive saponification and I don't know if it would matter really since it's soap & really wouldn't be left on the skin long enough to be beneficial anyways. I like adding different fruits/vegetables for color purposes and sometimes they sound exotic ;)
Yeah, Genny, I totally agree with you, but if the customer will ask you the same question he/she will be disappointed to hear answer "they sound exotic" :-|. By buying Strawberry Banana soap he/she assume how good such soap must be, moreover if the seller copy/paste the praises about how high in vitamins these fruits are :) You see what I'm trying to say? I'm just preparing to those questions, but since I don't sell such soaps yet, I want to be properly educated and do not delude people with my optimistic versions describing such soaps. I need facts! :razz:
 
Last edited:
Wine and champagne do it as well. Its the sugars present in the alcohol that do it. And even if they don't taste like it, there are plenty of sugars in wine & champagne, not to mention the beer. Honestly, I can't tell the difference between the Shiner Bock soap and the version of it I made with the el cheapo Natural Light beer.

do you have to heat the beer before mixing with lye, so the alcohol will evaporate? I remember reading something about this before.
 
Of the things you mentioned I have used butternut squash (like pumpkin) and beer.

The squash we grew ourselves (organically), I used it in a couple of soap loaves, so I'd say a total of 4 tbs pureed squash. We had many pounds of squash, so i don't feel that using a few tbsp was wasteful. It was for a holiday soap scented with pumpkin pie FO, a few spice EO, and swirled with chocolate. I personally don't think the squash did anything of any significance, but customers like it in the list of ingredients, and it does not hurt. The sugar from the squash probably helps with the lather a bit. The amount was insignificant (as far as taking food away from us), and I feel it made the soap more 'holiday' like.

Now the beer is another story. Recently DH used our unscented brown ale soap for the first time and he could not stop raving about it. He does not normally get that excited about soap. He called me into the shower to show me the incredible lather. It is not a gimmick, beer soap rocks! it really makes a difference in the lather, very noticeable. Good thing, because beer is expensive, so we do have to charge a bit more for those soaps (same price as the goat milk soaps we make).

You did not ask about goat milk, but that really makes a difference too!
 
With any alcohol, whether its beer champagne or wine, you need to simmer it for roughly 20 minutes to evaporate as much alcohol as possible. Once its cool enough, stick it in the fridge to chill, or better yet, freeze it and treat it like you're making a milk soap to help keep the sugars from burning. If you just chill the liquid instead of freezing it, slowly add the lye to the liquid. Beer especially is known to start to volcano when the lye is added. If you add it slowly, you can keep it from volcanoing.
 
I should mention that I evaporated the alcohol from the beer (gentle boil for 2 hours) and then when cooled I froze it into ice cubes.

You have to get the alcohol out of the beer, alcohol could make the soap accelerate, or even seize. I found some information on how long to boil it for, after 2 hours only 10% of the original alcohol is left, so if the beer was 5% alcohol it became 0.5% alcohol, which is insignificant. This amount seems to be OK, the soap batter behaved nicely.

I do use it frozen to prevent the sugars (malts in this case) getting burnt with the lye solution. I used a brown ale with a lot of sweetness. Even with the brown ale, the color of this soap is beige, not really dark.

My first beer soap was left unscented because I wanted to see what scent came trough, and figure what it might go well with. I can smell hops and malt, pleasantly faint but there. I have made a couple of beer soap batches with scents since then. They are still curing, can't wait!
 
Yeah, Genny, I totally agree with you, but if the customer will ask you the same question he/she will be disappointed to hear answer "they sound exotic" :-|. By buying Strawberry Banana soap he/she assume how good such soap must be, moreover if the seller copy/paste the praises about how high in vitamins these fruits are :) You see what I'm trying to say? I'm just preparing to those questions, but since I don't sell such soaps yet, I want to be properly educated and do not delude people with my optimistic versions describing such soaps. I need facts! :razz:


If the seller copy/pastes the praises about how high in vitamins those fruits are, they'd be violating FDA regulations.

If you are selling soap and labeling it only as soap (the only claim you're making is that it cleans), then you can state that the additives are used as colorant.

If you are selling soap and selling it as a cosmetic (saying anything other than it cleans), then most "natural" additives are not approved colorants. So saying they are there for color, would be against FDA regulations. But if they're in there for other reasons (the sugars in some fruits & vegetables help with bubbles also) and they happen to impart color to your soap, then that's fine. You just can't label them as your colorant.

Potential customers ask me quite often why there are certain ingredients in my soap. Like, "Why do you have goat milk in your soap?" I say, "It helps give the soap a creamier lather."
If they're not happy with that answer & were hoping to hear that it would help cure something, then that's too bad, I'm not a drug dealer.
 
My husband asked me a question: why waste the good produce if the lye will burn all the goodness anyway and all that will be left only fiber and maybe a color. Isn't better just to eat those strawberries, bananas, avocado and drink the beer, champagne and wine? :?: First, I wanted to argue with him that it should be left some vitamins and good stuff, but didn't know it for sure, so i had nothing to say. So, my question - are there anything good left in the soap after adding these fresh food additives that will be beneficial for skin (like vitamins and minerals)? I tried to find some info online but my attempt was not successful. Maybe you guys here know something more that I and my DH? :-| Please, share the links if you can find something that answers my question.
Thank you!

Soap is a wash off product. So you do not get any benefit from food stuff and none of the vitamins are absorbed. Better to eat to get all of those goodies as they have to be abosrbed into blood stream. Another thing is many food items will turn brown in soap after curing leaving it a nasty color of brown or grey. Soap just not stay on long enough to get those goodies in your skin.
 
There is also the art aspect of soap making!

If I know that a bar is made with milk and honey for example, then that beautiful combination effects my imagination and makes me feel good when using the bar, whether or not it actually has any benefit in the bar.
It makes me feel elegant, feel a sense of luxury, enjoy the look and feel of the bar etc. I think certain additives that you mentioned can be artistic design elements in a bar that add to the look, the overall enchantment and "story" of the bar. If I knew that strawberries had no benefit, I may still buy the bar cause a bar made with real strawberries seems fun or a great/special gift in the summer.

I guess at the end of the day, what I'm saying is a more ethereal way of saying "label appeal" but I really do think that the art aspect of soap is super valuable!
 
There is also the art aspect of soap making!

If I know that a bar is made with milk and honey for example, then that beautiful combination affects my imagination and makes me feel good when using the bar, whether or not it actually has any benefit in the bar.
It makes me feel elegant, feel a sense of luxury, enjoy the look and feel of the bar etc. I think certain additives that you mentioned can be artistic design elements in a bar that add to the look, the overall enchantment and "story" of the bar. -snip-

I guess at the end of the day, what I'm saying is a more ethereal way of saying "label appeal" but I really do think that the art aspect of soap is super valuable!

I couldn't agree more!!!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top