Teach Soap

I make a lot of soap with herb infused oils, mainly chamomile, chickweed, plantain, calendula, and comfrey and get them from Mountain Rose Herbs but they're out of most of them! I was wondering if anyone knew of a bulk herb supplier on the East Coast... I can't really wait twelve days for a shipment... yikes!

I've ordered from Penn Herbs in Phila. and had quick service. I imagine there are others as well.

There's also the Atlantic Spice Company out in Massachusetts -

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do you think the goodies from the herbs come through in the finished soap?Id love to hear more about your soap. I grow alot of herbs and was thinking of infuseing lavender and camomile this summer but didn't know if I should just use it for lip balms and body butters.

Thanks for the ideas guys.

I have been making soap for a little over ten years now and have always used infused oils. A lot of people say that they believe that the properties of the infused oil are lost in soap because of the lye and the heat of the gel stage. A few years ago concerned with the idea that I was waisting herbs and my time by infusing the oils so I did a test. I made two batches of soap one with my super strong herb infusion and the other with out, same recipe for each batch other wise and when cured gave them out for people to try not telling that anything has changed with the soap. Almost everyone seemed to have better results with the oil infused batch. Because of that, I do believe that if its a strong herb infusion that in the soap it does retain it's benefits so I continue to infuse my oils and everyone loves my soap.

I've been wondering about that for 2 years now. Can you tell me what herbs you infuse? I was thinking it would be nice in an unscented goats milk soap . What do you think?

I mainly use chamomile, chickweed, plantain, calendula, and comfrey and they make great additions to any soap!

This is interesting.... do you infuse your herbs fresh or after you have dried them? Also wondering if any of the scent of the herbs come through in the finished soaps? Thanks for sharing your experience with those of us just starting on this journey!

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

do you use infused oils in all your soaps? by the way chick weed and plantain grow wild in my yard and garden here in Pa.

I use them mostly in my baby/eczema soaps (although you can't market them as such) they're also very kind to dry, cracking diabetic skin. I use freshly dried herbs (as in recently dried herbs rather than really old ones that have been sitting on some stores shelve who knows how long) because if you use fresh herbs you can develop mold in your oil and that's just yucky. It takes a lot of dried herbs for an infusion usually a two part herb to one part oil ratio. I almost forgot, the herbs when infused give a soft herby smell but it doesn't carry through in soap.

I wonder it the smell would carry through in body or foot butter?