# red wine soap???



## awi

Okay, I just saw the neatest bar of soap that a friend of mine purchased in Napa Valley, California while on a trip.  It was a handmade bar made with red wine.  I want to try this, but they didn't list a label of ingredients on the wrapper...they only said it was a handmade goats milk soap made with red Napa Valley wine.  Anyone have a recipe like this or could you share how to do this?  Would you just treat the red wine like any other liquid...like maybe split the amount of GM you use in a recipe with 1/2 red wine or would this be too much?  Thanks for your time and any help would be appreciated.


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## Deda

When I make wine soap I just use my regular recipe (lye solution at 40%) adding in the wine at the end.

I simmer the wine down to a syrup on low temp for maybe 30 min to an hour.  The amount you use is up to you, I've used anywhere from 1/2 cup to 2 cups, presimmer.  Simmering burns off all the alcohol, making it good to soap.


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## Manchy

does it color the soap? i think i'll try this, lots of homemade wine sits around my house


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## awi

Manchy said:
			
		

> does it color the soap? i think i'll try this, lots of homemade wine sits around my house



The bar I have is a pale shade of red wine.  I don't know if they added anything else to color it or not, but it is real pretty.  I wish they would have listed their ingredients on the bar wrapper!


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## andreabadgley

I make a soap with red wine, and I've used anywhere from 15%-50% of the water content as wine.  I don't do anything to the wine.  I just mix it with the water, then add the lye.  If you do it this way, take care to add your sodium hydroxide VERY slowly.  The solution will heat up even quicker than usual (perhaps because of the sugars in the wine?), and if you're not careful it could boil over.  Adding the wine after you've made the lye solution would solve that problem (thanks for that idea, Deda!).

I add a wee bit of red colorant from Emporium Naturals to mine.  Without it I think the soap would be a pale pink instead of a wine color.  Let's see if I have a picture of it with the colorant:


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## Manchy

wow! very nice! i'm gonna try this today, can't wait to see how it comes out


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## awi

Thanks Andrea!  Sounds easy enough to me...I will try some this afternoon!


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## amanda

The batch of Merlot soap I made with 100% instead of water, came out a gorgeous dark rose color. Problem is: It's very strong. In fact, in the beginning it smelled more like a hangover and less like wine. So, to experiment I took half the batch the next day and rebatched it with some white soap -- much better, though I kept a few of the original bars just to see how they change as they cure.


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## ezeriuke

what did the color look like amanda ?


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## bodybym

I use both red and white wine to make soaps. I boil down the wine until it is 1/2 the original volume and then reconstitute it back to it's original volume with water. If you don't boil out the alcohol it can seize on you something fierce (yeah, I had this happen a couple of times). 

I also use an FO to scent the soaps so I'm not sure what they smell like unscented. I have a couple of contracts with wineries in my area to make soaps with their wines - it's pretty popular.


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## jessicammorton

Deda said:
			
		

> I simmer the wine down to a syrup on low temp for maybe 30 min to an hour.  The amount you use is up to you, I've used anywhere from 1/2 cup to 2 cups, presimmer.  Simmering burns off all the alcohol, making it good to soap.



I tried this Deda, and the lovely, deeply hued Petite Sirah wine I was using became a strange dark teal color in the just-traced soap, and the a rusty brown color in the finished bars.  I was even using 5ml of blue tansy EO in my scent blend, and it still didn't come out purple.  And I boiled 3 cups of wine down, too :-(  Did I do something wrong, or is it impossible to get a nice plum color out of wine, no matter how concentrated it is?

Maybe adding some alkanet oil next time would help...


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## Bludragon

Just an FYI for everybody, the boiling/vaporize point of alcohol is 181 degrees fahrenheit which is well below the boiling point of water. So it should not be necessary to do more than bring the wine just to a boil and stop there...

Sorry if i am out of place, being brand new to soapmaking, but this much i do know-alcohol has a lower boiling point than water and should be vaporized by the time the water content comes to a boil...


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## Lil Outlaws

one of my first batches was a wine soap with merlot.
I simmered a couple cups of wine down to a THICK paste.. like maybe 2tbs worth! 

separated the scented soap (vineyard FO) and then added the wine syrup to one half. Swirled those together and got this:


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## ctay122

I made some wine soap today and it will be interesting to see what color it turns out. I dolike your idea of swirling so I might further reduce what I have left (I reduced the bottle to 50%) and swirl. The smell was horrible when I added the liquids to the lye (used half reduced wine/water mix). I love the look of yours.


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## srenee

I would really like to try tis today.  This would be great for the upcoming holidays.  Love the colors.


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## khermsen

Tempting idea.......I love wine!  Have you found a complimentary FO?


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## srenee

Does anyone have a nice recipe to try this with?


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## soapbuddy

srenee said:
			
		

> Does anyone have a nice recipe to try this with?


You can use any recipe. If you are looking for idea, google Kathy Miller soap.


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## Iammand

I wish I had of read this post earlier. I just made my first batch of red wine soap, I forgot to boil it first & poured the lye in too quickly! The soap seized and doesn't look too good at all. I shall take a few of these tips & try again tomorrow.


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## sudbubblez

I've done this before too, and like a previous poster said, my lye water turned a teal color and the soap came out tan.  Why did this happen?  I don't understand how people are getting the red from the wine in CP when mine turns teal once it touches lye every time.


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## Genny

sudbubblez said:
			
		

> I've done this before too, and like a previous poster said, my lye water turned a teal color and the soap came out tan.  Why did this happen?  I don't understand how people are getting the red from the wine in CP when mine turns teal once it touches lye every time.



I don't know much about wine, but maybe it's the constituents of the wine that you're using?  I used a local made wine once and I got a lovely reddish purple.


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## lisamaliga

Wine soap is so much fun to make. I initially began making it back around 2001-2 when I was looking for a natural colorant for M&P. I've learned through trial and error that some wines turn purple in M&P and others turn [or stay] burgundy.

Cabernet turned purple: 






Merlot remained burgundy:





NOTE: I did enhance the colors a little with a dash of burgundy mica.


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