Herbal infusions in cold process soap

[Titinaki]

Hello,


I am fairly new to making soaps and I make them only for personal use or as a gift to friends so far.
I have tried a few recipes that I experimented with. I used different kind of oils, ingredients etc. In general, all my recipes turned out ok.
However, I like making CP soap with herbal tea instead of distilled water. I use some herbs that are available only in Greece, and I have noticed, each time I make soap with herbal tea from these herbs, my CP soap becomes spongey and has a funny feeling when pressing (it actually bounces back from the pressure). The first time this happened, I thought it was too much water or something. But I used the same oil recipe without tea as water and it did not turn like that. Now I made a second batch with different oil recipe and got the same bouncy effect (the outcome is curing).
The first soap when cured (it actually needed a long cure as well) was very nice and extremely gentle to the skin. I found it gentler than all the other non-herbal tea soaps I have made so far. But it also gave me the impression that the soap made with the tea was lighter than the soap made without the tea.

Therefore, I was wondering if anyone else has had this effect with herbal teas?
In my recipes I completely replaced the water with herbal tea that I had frozen in order to avoid scorching with the lye and I use a 32% lye concentration (so I don't think it's a matter of too much water).
I find it funny and strange.

 

[Kcryss]

I don't cold process and I haven't actually added herbs to my lye water, but my guess would be that your issue is with the specific herbs you are using.

For example, marshmallow root contains a lot of mucilage. I would suspect that the mucilage would have an impact on the feel of the soap.

There are many other herbs with various properties and it's those properties (or at least those that survive the lye monster) that could impact your soaps. It may take a bit of research on your part regarding the specific herbs you are using to identify the changes that are occuring in your soap.

 

[Todd Ziegler]

Kcryss is right. I would do an oil infusion with the tea and not do it with your lye. Plants have lots of different chemicals in and when you heat them up with the lye water, you are extracting chemicals that might not have leached out during an oil infusion.

 

[KiwiMoose]

I have made few soaps with tea - two with chamomile tea and now with green tea. I didn't notice any difference.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

There’s a long history of using herbal teas in soaps without issue other than the soap turning brown. What is the herb you’re using? I don’t think mucilage, which is abundant in the fresh aloe that many soap makers use, would be the cause of sponginess.