I make 2 special soaps with a few different juices in them. One is a carrot juice soap, and one is a cucumber juice/aloe vera juice/avocado puree soap.
My carrot soaps are made with 1/2 of my liquid amount as fresh carrot juice. I add the carrot juice at trace and get a nice pumpkin/orange color with it. I have soaps with carrot juice over a year old and they are still a nice pumpkin/orange color (not brown at all). I like using the carrot juice because it's a natural orange colorant that works for me that has remained orange-y.
The cucumber/aloe juice soap with avocado puree is a new experiment for me. I've made 4 batches so far over the past 2 months or so and the soaps have come out
really nice. I knew beforehand that over time the beautiful shade of green from the fresh cucumber juice and avocado puree will fade, so I added a smidge of chromium hydroxide green to them. So far they are holding up great. They are still such a pretty shade of green going on almost 8 weeks now.
There are soapers on another forum I frequent who make soaps with tomato juice with very good results. Some use it for all their liquid amount and some use it only for a part. I've not used it myself, but I've seen pictures of them, and the soaps are a beautiful reddish/orange, or yellow/orange, depending on the amount of tomato juice used. The people who have made them say that their soaps have not morphed into brown, even after a year. They've pretty much stayed the same pretty reddish/orangy/yellow color over time. One soaper who uses 100% tomato juice for her liquid says her tomato soap feels wonderfully creamy and mild. She uses it as a facial soap and absolutey loves it. I'm guessing that the extra mildness might be coming from the acid in the juice eating up some of her lye and giving her a higher superfat percentage. It sounds like I might just have to try tomato juice soon to find out!
can i put pureed produce in M&P? doesn't it turn brown or mold?
You can always experiment to find out
, but it's not something I'd personally risk with M&P. Where food is concerned, M&P doesn't have the same advantage of the chemical reaction that lye brings to CP (somewhat acting as a preservative). This is very important, especially when one considers that even CP soaps made with foods can go bad if the fruit and/or veggies are not pureed finely enough.
IrishLass