Brown soap

[Anne.m.]

After using raspberry purée and oats, my soap turned brown Within a couple of days. How did this happen?

 

[Steve85569]

Lye plus organic=brown.
Almost every time. There are a few that can be infused into oils that will give other colors (annetto (sp)) but usually brown is the result.
Lye eats things.

 

[Anne.m.]

Lye plus organic=brown.
Almost every time. There are a few that can be infused into oils that will give other colors (annetto (sp)) but usually brown is the result.
Lye eats things.

Is there lye in melt and pour?

 

[Steve85569]

Oops.
My bad. I shoulda looked at the section I was posting in.

 

[Obsidian]

If the m&p has a higher PH, it can still discolor botanicals.
Also, adding fruit to m&p is a good way to get mold. You should only ever add dried botanicals.

 

[GemstonePony]

Melt and Pour isn't really made for adding organic materials to. In my experience, even dried flowers tend to go brown as soon as the water can get to them in soap. The oatmeal could have been ok, as might other exfoliants, but M&P isn't made for adding much besides colors and fragrance. If you want to add fruit, veggies, or other organic materials to your soap, you would need to make oil-to-lye soap so it gets incorporated into the soap and can lose water instead of getting sealed in and causing the bar to go rancid.

 

[Anne.m.]

Thanks. It was a recipe from a book. I wonder if the author tried it out first.

After using raspberry purée and oats, my soap turned brown Within a couple of days. How did this happen?

Funny thing: my scraps stayed purple.