Teach Soap

Hello soapers . Glad to be a part of this forum and new to M&P. Today, I made my very first bar of soap (lemongrass EO, oats, and poppy seeds and a rose bath bomb!), after much time spent up late researching. I'm sure I've shortened my life .

Now to my questions...I've read nearly every page of posts in the M&P forum, and found a ton of useful info on inclusions. The "if it molds out of your soap, it'll mold in your soap" motto has stuck with me, but I'm not sure about some things. I planned, and hoped, to use dried materials in my soaps. I used poppy seeds today, which I don't think will discolour or foul, and I will avoid flowers since they will brown.

What about dried orange zest? It's suitably dried for pot pourri, but will it discolour in M&P? If I powder the dried zest, will this help at all? What about powders like beetroot and kelp? Might they discolour as well, even dried? I have seen somme people use kelp with no mention of later discolouration. After seeing how the beetroot powder worked in my bath bomb, I'd love to use it a bar of soap.

Thanks for any input .

PS...just tried the rose FO and petal bath bomb (2:1 bicarb/citric) and my exfoliating soap...oh ho ho...I love this.

Herbs like beetroot and kelp oxidize and turn brown over time. Poppy seeds are fine and so is calendula or oats. Orange zest will leave little halos where they are in soap.

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

Thanks, soapbuddy. Do you know why the soap/zest react that way? I'd be interested to see how these 'halos' look, to see if I could live with it. I'll have a look on google (haven't had much luck so far finding anything about it). Otherwise, the zest'll go in my bath bombs...oh well

I suppose seeds, coffee, and oats are my best bet then.

Be careful with the kelp, when it gets wet it has a smell of old sea water. I did mine in CP soap but I have a gut feeling that the same would happen in M&P. The only way I would ever use this again is to cover it with a very strong FO at maximum use rate.

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

Thanks for that info. I don't plan to use the kelp. I'd hate to have speckly, brown, smelly soap.

About the orange zest, when soapbuddy said "halos" I thought bubbles, for some reason. Thanks to one tiny coffee ground on my base, I know what a halo is now. I don't expect that would look very nice in a finished bar of soap, unless you're going for an...antiqued look. Maybe I'll put together a list of soapy vocab

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

Oh no, not your fault at all. I just hadn't put 2 and 2 together. I'm completely new to this, so I'm just glad to learn something