Using plant extracts in cold process soap

[soapmakerjan]

Kia Ora all! I am still a beginner soap maker but absolutely love making cold process soaps with natural benefits that are good for your skin. I know this is a topic that has been debated as lots of the natural benefits can be lost during the saponification process, but I have found many people use plant extracts in their soap - adding them in at the cool down phase/very end. This is something I was interested in doing but first wanted to know at what % of the total formulation do people recommend adding the extracts?

 

[KiwiMoose]

Kia ora Jan. You can add anything you like, and they don't have to be added at the end necessarily. I infuse olive oil with dried kawakawa for a few days, for example, and then use that as the usual OO component in my soap. I also blitz up the whole lot ( kawakawa and oil ) so that the leaves are just little specks and that creates a mild exfoliant in the soap.
I use aloe juice as the water component too - just mix the lye with it. It certainly helps with the lather, but as you have mentioned, whether you actually get any benefits from it is open for debate. However people will come to their own assumptions about products they know. I don't tell them it's good for anything, but if they decide it is - so be it.
Just remember that if the ingredient/extract you are adding is a liquid that you will need to deduct that same amount off the water you use in your lye solution.