Teach Soap

Hi everyone . I decided to make my fourth batch of soap I wanted to do a shampoo bar and I got the recipie from soapqueen.com its there Invigorateing shampoo bar recipie with tea tree oil. I have done a little reading and I heard mint was good for the scalp so I put some distilled water in a cup heated it up and added 2 bags of peppermint tea. I let it steep for about an hour and cool to room temp. I then got all my ingredents measured and all my oils mixed in one bowl then added my lye to the tea water. I didnt add any dairy or sugar of anything and it went from looking like the normal greenish tea color to a deep dark brown brick type red and had some orangish red foam on the top. IT changed color in like 2 seconds and got pretty warm but not like super hot. I let it cool and stirred it up and since I was in the middle of makeing soap and had already used all my stuff and lye I decided to mix it with the oils and see what happend. It acted like normal lye mixture added to oils and I brought it to a fairly thick trace just to make sure there wasnt a false trace issue. I poured it and its sitting in the mold its a redish brown color now. But its acting like every other batch I have made. Its about and 18 oz yield.
Please any ideas.
Has anyone used herbs or teas as there water for there lye mixture , did this happen?
Will I be able to use this soap?
Thanks so much in advance.

It is the tea, don't worry about it. Assuming you did everything else correctly it will be fine!

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Thank you so much for your quick response. It acted normal in every way. I was just shocked by the very quick change of color. Everyone talks about dairy changes when mixed with lye I hadnt heard of anything with tea. Im really relived that it should be ok. I run all my recipies thru brambleberries calculator and soapcalcs calclulator they tend to be the same except the amount of liquid. I use soapcalc for the properties as its more detailed but BB for its ease of use.
I did 6% superfat I thought maybe if it was to superfated it would be a bit greasy with the whole hair thing so we will see .

It's been my experience that unless you are using water to mix your lye into, it can cause some interesting color changes.

I was doing a goatsmilk soap once, and put the honey in the milk, along with the lye. Got an interesting mauve color. Didn't hang around, alas.

Anita

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Was it tea, flavored with peppermint? Or was it a "tea" (made without actual tea leaves, and therefore actually not tea at all, but rather, an herbal infusion) made with just mint leaves? The higher the percentage of peppermint in the tea blend, the more likely that's your culprit. Peppermint leaves turn brown with age, unless treated with a preservative. This is the only thing in effect if your "tea" was actually just an infusion of mint leaves.

So random question...
If you infused some of your oils with the peppermint tea and added it at trace would it still turn all crazy colored?

Yes Katie. And a "tea" is an infusion, whether made with various tea leaves, a commercial tea bag, or with various herbs, plats, or spices.

_________________
Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy