Thought I would share a little bit about the soap I made for the Alternative Liquids Swap, since I didn't find much about kombucha soap when doing a search myself prior to making it.
I made two batches - a practice soap and a full batch for the swap.
So, potential issues were acidity, trace amount of alcohol (I used GT's Enlightened line , which has I believe 0.5% or less), sugar content and carbonation. I'll be honest, I didn't make much of an adjustment to compensate. No boiling off or letting it go flat. I did ensure the kombucha was nice and cold (measured my liquid and put it in the freezer for a little bit) and then added the lye in the sink in an ice bath (just in case!).
No volcano (yay!). The mixture went an orangey brown color. By the way, the first batch was made with GT's Original Kombucha, the second with GT's Gingerade (kombucha + ginger juice) because the store was out of the original that day. The lye mixture that had ginger juice in it smelled super strongly of ginger.
The first batch was made with my normal lye concentration (33%) and the batter thickened up and the soap set pretty quickly. Sorry to say I'm not sure if the kombucha had much to do with it, since the fragrance is one I used for the first time. The kombucha turned the batter pretty brown and I thought it was going to be pretty ugly. I added a bunch of TD (not anything excessive though) and once saponified, it was a nice off-white.
Second batch was made with around a 30% lye concentration to get more of the liquid into the batch and hopefully keep the batter more fluid. Also, this was the batch with the ginger kombucha. It stayed more fluid. This one did heat a little more and I got a small crack in the loaf before I uncovered it. Same initial discoloration and final result after adding TD and saponification.
First batch on the left is scented with Eucalyptus and Spearmint from Elements. Second batch on the right (with ginger juice) is scented with Bergamot & White Tea from WSP. I like both fragrances a lot. Both of them were quick ITP swirls, nothing fancy because the soap batter wasn't that pretty. I like how they came out though, especially the first one.
I did adjust my normal super fat of 8% down to 6% to compensate for some of the acidity. Both soaps lather really nicely, perhaps the sugar helped with that. The test batch was one of my favorites that I have made. And I think I would do 33% lye if I made it again.
The kombucha contains acetic acid, lactic acid and glucuronic acid. You will find things like this on the internet:
"Rand Hills Naturals has had their soaps tested at the same lab that Michael Roussin used for his Kombucha research in 1995. The lab determined that the active ingredients in Kombucha (glucuronic acid, B vitamins, etc) remain intact passing along those benefits to you."
https://www.kombuchakamp.com/rand-hill-naturals-kombucha-soap
The soap is nice, that's all I can claim.
Anyway, I hope this ends up being useful to someone!
I made two batches - a practice soap and a full batch for the swap.
So, potential issues were acidity, trace amount of alcohol (I used GT's Enlightened line , which has I believe 0.5% or less), sugar content and carbonation. I'll be honest, I didn't make much of an adjustment to compensate. No boiling off or letting it go flat. I did ensure the kombucha was nice and cold (measured my liquid and put it in the freezer for a little bit) and then added the lye in the sink in an ice bath (just in case!).
No volcano (yay!). The mixture went an orangey brown color. By the way, the first batch was made with GT's Original Kombucha, the second with GT's Gingerade (kombucha + ginger juice) because the store was out of the original that day. The lye mixture that had ginger juice in it smelled super strongly of ginger.
The first batch was made with my normal lye concentration (33%) and the batter thickened up and the soap set pretty quickly. Sorry to say I'm not sure if the kombucha had much to do with it, since the fragrance is one I used for the first time. The kombucha turned the batter pretty brown and I thought it was going to be pretty ugly. I added a bunch of TD (not anything excessive though) and once saponified, it was a nice off-white.
Second batch was made with around a 30% lye concentration to get more of the liquid into the batch and hopefully keep the batter more fluid. Also, this was the batch with the ginger kombucha. It stayed more fluid. This one did heat a little more and I got a small crack in the loaf before I uncovered it. Same initial discoloration and final result after adding TD and saponification.
First batch on the left is scented with Eucalyptus and Spearmint from Elements. Second batch on the right (with ginger juice) is scented with Bergamot & White Tea from WSP. I like both fragrances a lot. Both of them were quick ITP swirls, nothing fancy because the soap batter wasn't that pretty. I like how they came out though, especially the first one.
I did adjust my normal super fat of 8% down to 6% to compensate for some of the acidity. Both soaps lather really nicely, perhaps the sugar helped with that. The test batch was one of my favorites that I have made. And I think I would do 33% lye if I made it again.
The kombucha contains acetic acid, lactic acid and glucuronic acid. You will find things like this on the internet:
"Rand Hills Naturals has had their soaps tested at the same lab that Michael Roussin used for his Kombucha research in 1995. The lab determined that the active ingredients in Kombucha (glucuronic acid, B vitamins, etc) remain intact passing along those benefits to you."
https://www.kombuchakamp.com/rand-hill-naturals-kombucha-soap
The soap is nice, that's all I can claim.
Anyway, I hope this ends up being useful to someone!
