Grapes in soap

[ChristinaOlivia]

Hello,

has anyone tried making soap with grapes? Either as a total water replacement or added some puréed grapes with water or at trace? I tried to research it but haven’t found anything besides grape fo. My cousin has a little homestead and grows tons of grapes and asked me if I could make a grape soap. I’m sure it would be better to make this as a hot process soap to get any type of benefits from the grapes. I just don’t know if it would mold or not

 

[lenarenee]

Grapes are filled with sugars, and I would be concerned about mold, and also the likelihood of overheating with all that sugar. Any substantial amount of grapes would probably turn brown. But if you kept the amount of puree very small, or even just added a tablespoon or two of juice per lb of oil...?

 

[Babyshoes]

Or just a small amount of grape juice, perhaps?

 

[earlene]

Amy Warden had a challenge wherein food additives were included, and the guidelines were to not go above a specific percentage. I'll take a look back and let you know. I made soap with black cherries for that challenge. The soaps are still fine, without any mold growing on them.

I would caution to remove the outer peeling & any seeds before making the grape pulp into a purée. And I'd add the puree to the soap batter at medium trace, so it won't sink to the bottom (which it could do with a light trace.

Okay, I found the guidelines: 1 part of food ingredient to 8 parts of oils. That's the maximum amount of food ingredients. And puréeing the food is to prevent chunks of food in the soap, which can lead to mold growth. Depending on how much liquid is in the food, a water discount will be required. I looked up water content for the food ingredients I used, and deducted water prior to making my lye solution. I did use the liquid from the cherries to make my lye solution with a practice batch, but due to boil-over, lost some of the solution because sugar-containing ingredients heat up the lye very fast when used to make the solution. My later batches of lye solution for the cherry soap, I took care NOT to use cherry juice for the lye solution.

According to this chart, apparently grapes are about 81% water, which is similar to what black cherries were when I made that soap.

Incidentally, I still have a couple of bars of my Black Cherries soap & they are fine. Here is the write-up on when I made them. I mentioned leaving out any added fragrance, and of course I had no expectation that any cherry scent would remain in the soap.

 

[cerelife]

We grow muscadines and I've made soap using the skins for texture/interest. I peel the grapes and then puree the skins adding 1/2 T ppo. This is a CP recipe with a Grape FO and a purple mica. No issues with mold and I still have a bar from the first batch of muscadine soap that I made 8/29/17. The soap is fine and still has a faint scent of the grape FO, surprisingly enough.

 

[ChristinaOlivia]

Thank you everyone! Sorry for the VERY late response. My son ended up getting Covid and I completely forgot I asked this question Normally my lye concentration is 50% so maybe with the grapes having a higher water content, that wouldn’t be a bad idea?

 

[ChristinaOlivia]

Amy Warden had a challenge wherein food additives were included, and the guidelines were to not go above a specific percentage. I'll take a look back and let you know. I made soap with black cherries for that challenge. The soaps are still fine, without any mold growing on them.

I would caution to remove the outer peeling & any seeds before making the grape pulp into a purée. And I'd add the puree to the soap batter at medium trace, so it won't sink to the bottom (which it could do with a light trace.

Okay, I found the guidelines: 1 part of food ingredient to 8 parts of oils. That's the maximum amount of food ingredients. And puréeing the food is to prevent chunks of food in the soap, which can lead to mold growth. Depending on how much liquid is in the food, a water discount will be required. I looked up water content for the food ingredients I used, and deducted water prior to making my lye solution. I did use the liquid from the cherries to make my lye solution with a practice batch, but due to boil-over, lost some of the solution because sugar-containing ingredients heat up the lye very fast when used to make the solution. My later batches of lye solution for the cherry soap, I took care NOT to use cherry juice for the lye solution.

According to this chart, apparently grapes are about 81% water, which is similar to what black cherries were when I made that soap.

Incidentally, I still have a couple of bars of my Black Cherries soap & they are fine. Here is the write-up on when I made them. I mentioned leaving out any added fragrance, and of course I had no expectation that any cherry scent would remain in the soap.

 

[ChristinaOlivia]

Thank you for that chart! That is very helpful!