# Rice Water Soap!



## MGM (Aug 24, 2019)

These are some nice rice water soaps resting (thanks @Dawni for inspiration). Thanks also to @Saltwater Scented , as I came upon this recipe a couple days ago and used it yesterday for some scrubby soaps with pumice that were rushed a bit and oh my I'm not sure how the design will look. Let's just talk about these pretty rice soaps (same recipe), shall we?

I made the rice water by finding some leftover rice in the fridge and blending it with hot water a number of times. Then I strained it through a coffee filter and froze it in cubes. When I added the lye crystals this morning, they had a heck of a time melting the ice, and the "liquid" was never really liquid, it was thick and gloppy. It looked grainy, but every time I felt it between my fingers, it was ok. And it was cold! With all the lye in, the mixture never went over 74F. The oils were only at 81F. I was going to have to watch out for false trace!

So I glopped the lye into the oils and stirred. It was tough to smooth out the mixture, but it seemed to get to emulsion really quickly. It was thick-ish to begin with because the lye mixture was so thick (it was the consistency of rice pudding---or thicker...it piled up on itself, didn't spill down) and after about 5 minutes of mixing and SBing, I decided to pour one soap (top left). It wasn't yet at trace. I let the rest of the batter sit, stirring on and off for another 10 minutes and then poured the top right and middle two soaps. By then it was at a thin trace (you can see that the mixture didn't settle completely even after banging). The top 4 are unscented and uncoloured; at that point, I added some Peaches and Cream from NDA to the rest of the batter and poured the last 2 (plus 2 more not pictured).

Now, a few hours hence, the bottom ones smell lightly of peaches, but when you get your nose close to the top ones, they smell like rice! Not lye, not oils, not lard, not even that soap-curing smell, but rice! Quite nice!

Will update if anything changes, and in 6 weeks once I use it.


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## runnerchicki (Aug 24, 2019)

Interested to hear what you think of the soap. I LOVE my rice milk soaps. It is becoming my standard liquid additive at this point. So easy to make, so inexpensive, and I love the feel of it in the soap.

By the way - when I use rice milk the lye mixture gets very thick just like you described. I don't freeze mine - I just add it to a 50:50 masterbatch but it still gets very thick. I have no problem blending it in though.


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## earlene (Aug 24, 2019)

Rice water from cooked rice is very thick to start with.  I make a drink called rice congee, by boiling the rice in water and straining out the rice.  The liquid is thick from the start, but just gets thicker over time, especially when refrigerated.  I also use rice powder (I make my own by pulverizing the rice in a spice grinder) to thicken soup.  It's the starch in the rice as it breaks down that causes this thickening.  It is no surprise that it thickens the lye solution.


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## MGM (Aug 25, 2019)

earlene said:


> It's the starch in the rice as it breaks down that causes this thickening.  It is no surprise that it thickens the lye solution.



This makes sense except....the rice water isn't thick. It's not water, but it's medium-cream weight. When I added the lye, it went straight to porridge! My first thought was that the lye was cooking the rice and it was a classic thickener, like when you make a cornstarch or flour slurry and cook it to thicken your gravy. EXCEPT, in this case the rice is already cooked. So cooked rice water is relatively thin, but double-cooking it thickens it instantly? Maybe.

Turns out it's not just with lye that rice water goes weird....check out how it freezes! First is right after I poured the liquid; second is how the cubes formed.


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## KiwiMoose (Aug 26, 2019)

Oat milk does the same when you add the lye - it turns to porridge.


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## MGM (Aug 26, 2019)

KiwiMoose said:


> Oat milk does the same when you add the lye - it turns to porridge.


Same thing though....that's made with raw oats, so the cooking would thicken. I'm not sure about the pre-cooked rice thickening again.


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## dibbles (Aug 26, 2019)

That frozen rice water is crazy


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## MGM (Aug 26, 2019)

dibbles said:


> That frozen rice water is crazy


I see the Loch Ness monster....Kind of wish I had a time-lapse camera in the freezer.


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## Dawni (Aug 26, 2019)

It's a brachiosaurus! Lol

Time lapse would have been awesome lol

Sorry though, I have no input, coz I add my pureed rice in with my oils, with the amount taken out of the calculated water amount.

What I add with my lye is the starchy water from soaking the raw rice. That one doesn't thicken up, but it does turn yellow.

Mine is unscented and I do get a faint rice smell when it's done but as it cures its just soap smell.


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## earlene (Aug 31, 2019)

MGM said:


> This makes sense except....the rice water isn't thick. It's not water, but it's medium-cream weight. When I added the lye, it went straight to porridge! My first thought was that the lye was cooking the rice and it was a classic thickener, like when you make a cornstarch or flour slurry and cook it to thicken your gravy. EXCEPT, in this case the rice is already cooked. So cooked rice water is relatively thin, but double-cooking it thickens it instantly? Maybe.
> 
> Turns out it's not just with lye that rice water goes weird....check out how it freezes! First is right after I poured the liquid; second is how the cubes formed.



I have never frozen rice water.  Quite interesting effect!

When you say your rice water is not thick but then say it is like medium cream, I would call that thick.  Perhaps it is a matter of definition.   Maybe viscous is a better word?

Anyway, yes, the added heat (also added cold) will increase the thickening or viscosity of the rice-water.  That is my experience, anyway.

My rice water (congee) gets really thick in the fridge.  Gelatinous actually, but I can still drink it.  But it starts out thickish after I strain out the rice.  Cold thickens it, as does heat.  Of course it probably thickens with time as well, and maybe it doesn't matter if I put it the fridge; it would get thicker regardless (but then I wouldn't feel safe drinking it if it sat at room temperature for a long time.)

Of course how thick your rice water is to begin with probably depends on a couple of things, like time and heat; how long the rice was in the water to begin with.  When I make congee, the rice in the water for a long time and with heat.  But even with a simple rinse, I would suspect some starch still gets into the water, although not as much.


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## MGM (Aug 31, 2019)

Oh I'm sure there's plenty of starch in the water, as I used leftover rice, pureed it with hot water, then (slowly) strained out the lumps. So I maybe have more than rice water...perhaps rice milk is a better descriptor (e.g., my potato water doesn't have pureed potatoes in, so if it was just rice cooking water, that would be different).
I'm just surprised that it thickens so much upon second cooking and that the freezing sculptures are so interesting. Mind you, rice might do this all the time with a second cooking; I've never done it before for *food* purposes ;-)

As to what it does in my soap, we'll have to see. The soap seems quite grainy, but it'll be a while before i can use it (took forever to even unmold!). Since I suspect I have a bit too much rice, I think I'll use my remaining cubes cut with another liquid to be a bit less ricey.


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## janesathome (Jun 18, 2022)

MGM said:


> Oh I'm sure there's plenty of starch in the water, as I used leftover rice, pureed it with hot water, then (slowly) strained out the lumps. So I maybe have more than rice water...perhaps rice milk is a better descriptor (e.g., my potato water doesn't have pureed potatoes in, so if it was just rice cooking water, that would be different).
> I'm just surprised that it thickens so much upon second cooking and that the freezing sculptures are so interesting. Mind you, rice might do this all the time with a second cooking; I've never done it before for *food* purposes ;-)
> 
> As to what it does in my soap, we'll have to see. The soap seems quite grainy, but it'll be a while before i can use it (took forever to even unmold!). Since I suspect I have a bit too much rice, I think I'll use my remaining cubes cut with another liquid to be a bit less ricey.


I’ve just cooked some rice to try to make some soap - wondering how the various experiments from a couple years back turn out! Good soap? Are you doing the same or different methods now?


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