# Spider silk instead of Tussah?



## milky (Sep 13, 2016)

Would it possibly be as good? I've never used or tried a silk soap but so many soapers seem to love it. A search showed that one forum member uses spider silk but not how it compared.

There's no way it would be me doing the collecting. Maybe not even the handling and adding the silk to lye water. But being a cheapskate and with Halloween around the corner, I'm curious.


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## navigator9 (Sep 14, 2016)

I have no idea, but......... wouldn't that make some amazing Halloween soap?!


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## milky (Sep 14, 2016)

Definitely! I found another thread in which the same member (Ancel) gave a little more detail, here.


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## cmzaha (Sep 14, 2016)

I would not see why you could not. Although I would not use real sticky webs like a black widow spins. I just checked out the other link, and I will mention here that to use a silk cocoon you just cut it up and toss it into the lye water. I use silk cocoons exclusively because I find them cleaner than tussah silk. They will dissolve as long as the lye is hot


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## dixiedragon (Sep 14, 2016)

Here's an interesting article about genetically modifying silk works to produce spider silk:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/silkworms-will-mass-produce-spider-silk-because-spiders-wont

Apparently it is hard to farm spiders. They add something to make these worm's eyes glow red so it is easy to tell them from regular, unmodified silk worms.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 14, 2016)

Oooh ... but think of the marketing potential of using black widow silk in your soap, Carolyn! 



cmzaha said:


> ...I would not use real sticky webs like a black widow spins


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## dixiedragon (Sep 14, 2016)

DeeAnna said:


> Oooh ... but think of the marketing potential of using black widow silk in your soap, Carolyn!


 
By the time I am done spraying the black widow web with Raid, it is no longer soap safe!


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## earlene (Sep 14, 2016)

So that time my son bought a used car that had been sitting in the woods for a long time and had an infestation of spiders, instead of freaking out about it, I should have been gathering spider webs!?!


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## penelopejane (Sep 14, 2016)

cmzaha said:


> I would not see why you could not. Although I would not use real sticky webs like a black widow spins. I just checked out the other link, and I will mention here that to use a silk cocoon you just cut it up and toss it into the lye water. I use silk cocoons exclusively because I find them cleaner than tussah silk. They will dissolve as long as the lye is hot



My tussah silk comes in a beautiful loose wrapped skein that is totally clean and gorgeous. 

I have to cut it into 2mm lengths, soak it in water and then put the lye in and stir to get it to dissolve but that's working so well now that I don't have to strain it.


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## cmzaha (Sep 14, 2016)

DeeAnna said:


> Oooh ... but think of the marketing potential of using black widow silk in your soap, Carolyn!


:evil:  Good Point!! Maybe I will have to start collecting, since I have my fair share of Widows where I live...


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## cmzaha (Sep 14, 2016)

penelopejane said:


> My tussah silk comes in a beautiful loose wrapped skein that is totally clean and gorgeous.
> 
> I have to cut it into 2mm lengths, soak it in water and then put the lye in and stir to get it to dissolve but that's working so well now that I don't have to strain it.


The Tussah I received once was not very clean so never bought more


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## penelopejane (Sep 14, 2016)

cmzaha said:


> The Tussah I received once was not very clean so never bought more



What a pain! I get it in oz so not suitable for you but they show a picture so maybe that's what you should look for. I'll upload a pic.
It is unbleached. I got 50g and it will last me years!


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## TeresaT (Sep 14, 2016)

Spider silk for soap?  Dang!  I _knew_ I shouldn't have cleared away those cobwebs over the weekend... :cry:


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## TeresaT (Sep 14, 2016)

cmzaha said:


> The Tussah I received once was not very clean so never bought more



Oh, I'm sorry you had a bad experience.  I bought a huge bag of it at a fiber fair last year.  It was either 8 oz or 16 oz, I forget which size and was absolutely gorgeous.  It's a cream color and ready to spin into yarn.  The best quality and pricing for tussah is from fiber sellers.


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## snappyllama (Sep 14, 2016)

I cannot be the only person here freaked out by spiders. All I can think of is opening a new bag of spider silk and having one of those horrible mama spiders jump out at me then squishing it and having all the babies run out. AAAAAACCKK! Now I'm itchy all over.

That said, I can see the Halloween/kid appeal. But no way I'd ever order to try it out... No sir.


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## dixiedragon (Sep 15, 2016)

I think you'd get just as many sales if you just NAMED your soap "Spider Silk" or "Widow's Web" vs having actual spider silk in there.


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## cmzaha (Sep 15, 2016)

TeresaT said:


> Spider silk for soap?  Dang!  I _knew_ I shouldn't have cleared away those cobwebs over the weekend... :cry:


LOL, I just collected some spider silk and will play! MY house grows webs overnight...


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## DeeAnna (Sep 15, 2016)

Mine does too! The spiders are really busy this time of year. There are some gorgeous ones out there -- both the spiders and their amazing webs. I don't mind admiring as long as they stay where they belong -- outdoors!


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## cmzaha (Sep 15, 2016)

The silk turned a tan color in my lye, which is different than the silk cocoons from silk worms which turn yellow. I do have to strain it since there were some leaves mixed in from taking some of the webbing from my Juniper trees, which probably contributed to the tan color. The webs melted easier than my silk worm silk


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## mikvahnrose (Sep 15, 2016)

Hi there!
Newbie interjecting and i am just flooding my brain with info on how to make soap.
But this is super interesting. Silk in soap? That is a thing?!? What does it do and how do you use it?


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## HowieRoll (Sep 15, 2016)

Because we live in the country/woods, cobwebs are an uphill battle in my house.  It's when the sun shines in and you can see the new ones that cropped up that it's a pain, but when it's cloudy and you can't see them, they don't exist, right?  

The wheels in my head are spinning now, wondering if I could open up our house to people who want cobwebs and market it as a U-Pick scenario, just like strawberry fields or apple orchards.  And for a nominal extra fee, maybe I could charge for people to do a little light dusting, too?  :grin:


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## Kismet (Sep 19, 2016)

I always keep at least one spider in my kitchen (to catch any fruit flies) and one in my weaving studio (to catch any wool moths).  They are all small and they are all named Charlotte.  Spiders aren't able to see more tha eight inches in front of themselves, so I never feel threatened or spied upon. :~)

One of the first soaps I made was with tussah silk that was sent to me in a grab bag.  It took a long time to dissolve - it seemed so anyway - and I stirred the lye until it mostly disappeared.  The soap was beautiful, but I don't know how much had to do to the addition of the silk or the combination of the oils and shea butter.  That company sent me another sample of silk, so I will try to reproduce the recipe.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 19, 2016)

I have lots of spiders in the house and around the yard too -- the U-pick plan is a great one! 

I now know why the creepy old movies had those ropy, lacy cobwebs festooning the crystal chandeliers and doorways. That really does happen, but I never saw it until I lived in the place I do now -- a house that we converted from an old barn. The ceiling in the living room (former hay mow) is 22 feet above the floor, so it's tough to dust up that high very often. 

The cobweb spiders are nearly invisible, but it's amazing how fast they spin their webs and then how fast those webs turn into cobwebs. The cobwebs get pretty amazingly creepy-movie large.


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## dibbles (Sep 19, 2016)

mikvahnrose said:


> Hi there!
> Newbie interjecting and i am just flooding my brain with info on how to make soap.
> But this is super interesting. Silk in soap? That is a thing?!? What does it do and how do you use it?



Silk in soap is definitely a thing. Most people who use silk use tussah silk, and lots of suppliers carry it. I bought mine from Bramble Berry. A small amount is added to the water before the lye. The silk dissolves as the lye is stirred. I always strain my lye water when using silk because I often can see a small bit of silk fiber left behind.


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## dixiedragon (Mar 24, 2017)

mikvahnrose said:


> Hi there!
> Newbie interjecting and i am just flooding my brain with info on how to make soap.
> But this is super interesting. Silk in soap? That is a thing?!? What does it do and how do you use it?


 
Some folks feel it contributes to a different feel to the soap. Some people feel it's more about label appeal.

There are a few ways to do it. You could start cheap - get an old silk shirt or tie (a pale color is better), and snip it into pieces smaller than 1 square inch. Drop a few in your lye water. You can also buy tussah silk - if you have a nice yarn store that serves spinners, they may have some. You can also buy a bottle of silk proteins which is already in liquid form.


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## Rune (Mar 24, 2017)

I really hope that anyone using spider silk really advertise it, in big letters, so that people are aware. I would throw up for days in a row if I got to know that a soap that I have bought AND used did contain spider silk. I would also take a shower in pure bleach and other chemicals to get it all off. I could not even read the comments on this thread, only a few, because I felt sick already just by the thinking of it. Who on earth could possibly want to use the worst creature on earth to make soap? Maybe I am too afraid of spiders. I actually flush them down the toilet two times. And between the first and second time, I don't take my eyes of the toilet for one second. I am afraid they will crawl up again. Sometimes I also lay toilet paper on top of the water, after the second flush, so to make a barrier they can't come thru. I would definately prefer poisonous snakes instead of spiders. Non of them we have in Norway are any dangerous. But that does not help a bit. We don't have snakes either, or any dangerous animals, so there is plenty of time to be afraid of spiders, since there is nothing else to fear. In the south, they have two sorts of snakes. One of them is a little dangerous, but nothing really bad. We have tics, not so much here in the north. But they can be really bad. And poisonous plants, but they are no harm unless you eat them. Immigrants from Asia do. They run out in the forest and pick a lot of mushrooms, the precise same mushroom as they are used to eating in Asia. Like Thailand and such places. What they don't know is that it just looks the same, but is for sure not. So every year immigrants have to be hospitalized. I don't think everybody survive either. Norwegians don't pick mushrooms without knowing exactly what species it is. And there are mushroom control centers across the country. So people should not really eat any mushroom at all that has not been examinated and approved by a mushroom control unit. But immigrants don't know that. And whole families are really seriously poisoned or killed by often quite small amounts.

I will never put real silk in my soap recipes either. What if that silk comes from China. No one has any guarantee that they have not cheated and used cheap spiders instead to make fake silk. So no, I don't take the chance. I will use corn flour as a silk substitute. But maybe potato starch is better? It does have a more silky feel to it than corn flour. But how it will behave in a soap, I don't know.


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