the Soap Making Forum

[TomDillinger]

Do any of you have experience putting crushed or blended herbs in your soap?

My grandmother collects chamomile and linden tree leaves for tea and I cant help but think about how good they smell and how nice they might be in soap.

Is there usually discoloration and spoilage when you put organic matter in your soap?

[TomDillinger]

so i went along with it anyway, ill post the results in a couple of days

[IanT]

I love using herbs in my soaps... I try to grind them up as finely as possible, but I find that the scent usually doesnt make it through to the final soaps!... and lye discolors pretty much everything, lol ...

what herbs did you use?
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[karajan]

I too use herbs in my soap but have to agree with Ian that the scent does not always make it through.

I also noticed that if you put lavender in soap, it will turn dark brown. I believe it is due to the lye.

[ohsoap]

I've used peppermint, chokeberries, lavender & I have spearminy, citonella & rosemary down stairs.

[IanT]

[TomDillinger]

hey guys, i said i would post pics so here they are, my chamomile and linden leave herb soap with holly berry cybillia fragrance from Brambleberry. i love holly berry's earthy herbal fragrance, it goes really well with the herbs.

Also a picture of me in the snowstorm (on the right)

And my 4 labors of love so far.

[April]

You soap additives look fabulous. You took a risk and it was a success.

I love the look of additives in soap. But I also like to mix it up a bit and have some plain soap too. I've discovered that there are a wide variety of tastes out there.

I had a bad experience with additives once. I had some South African Redbush Masala Chai, so I ground it and put it in a batch at trace. It was my first expensive oil batch (using butters) and although the resulting soap smelled outstanding, the little tea morsels where very sharp on the skin. So I had to "rebrand" it as a gardeners soap. The scent did not come from the masala tea however, I blended 3-4 essential oils to give it a Chai scent. So if I do this again I would still grind the tea, but then I would make tea (i.e., add boiling water) strain it, blot it, and then add the softened tea at trace. I believe that would have made the difference for this type of tea.

Your winter scene is great. There is nothing more beautiful than fresh fallen snow...as long as you are warm and safe.

The idea that you made these soaps with your Grandmother's collection of herbs makes these soaps extra special. I can imagine that she is so proud of you and your soap.

I wish you the best with all your future soap making.

Warm regards,

April

[CherryGardenGirl]

I used chamomile in a batch of soap and I love it They did turn brown but I was prepared!
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[jessicammorton]

I have been experimenting with a lot of flowers, herbs, and spices in my CP soaps. Here is what I found:

- some green-leaf herbs (lemon verbena, peppermint, tarragon) perform exceptionally well...lovely green color, great scent!
- some rose and purple-colored flowers (lavender, rose petal) get discolored...purple tint in the final soap from the pigment leached from the lavender, leaving behind brown flowers. Not awful for a natural product, but just be forewarned!
- some yellow flowers (sunflower petals, calendula petals) do great! Pure yellow color in the petals, some buttery yellow pigmentation of the final soap.
- dried rosemary turns brown
- spices and citrus peel (cardamom, cinnamon, orange) create little "halos" of color around each speck, looks a bit splotchy...but fragrance remains intact. This personally bugged me but I have been told that with the natural look and feel of my soaps, it is actually quite acceptable. it is less noticeable in trimmed soaps, more apparent in my small (individually) molded soaps.

I just made a batch of soap with whole jasmine flowers...so far, looks like they are holding up!

Have fun

[FloridaSoaper]

I've used ground up mint leaves, rose petals, and chamomile flowers in my cp soaps before. My fav. by far was the mint leaves, they make such a pretty soap! Almost lend the soap a faint blue tinge when the bars cure. The lye does affect color...usually turning the flowers dark, either brown or black/dark blue looking. I have yet to try herbs/flowers in hp soaps...hoping they will turn out better and the colors will stay truer, but who knows.