Hair

[sososo]

What if I put some hair in the lye water?! Not human hair - it will be too... canibalistic! Let's say some cat hair, which is very thin. Or some bird feathers. Will it disolve in lye, like silk? If so, will the soap be improved by this ingredient?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Hair can indeed be used. From what I have read, it'll be similar to the silk.

 

[froggybean37]

If you're planning on selling this soap I would be *very* careful to clearly label the ingredients. Different hairs/furs/feathers are not hypoallergenic like silk is. Would be interested to hear how it turns out though!

 

[shunt2011]

The thought of that just gives me the ewwwww factor. I personally wouldn't do it. Besides, I get enough dog hair in stuff at home without adding it to my soap. I try to avoid that.

 

[Seawolfe]

I used the belly fluff fur from my cat on this soap: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=43921
It worked as well as tussah silk, but I have to say that I cant really tell the effects and I am too lazy to make the same batch with and without and do a blind study.
The way I see it - the protein is broken up by the lye and theres no danger of any dander sticking about - which is what produces the allergic reaction. Though I doubt I would do it on a soap that I sold.

 

[Dahila]

Oh jeez I am allergic to animal hair and probably some of people too, It is scary, I could get the soap made with feather (strong allergy) or cats hair.......

 

[Earthen_Step]

"Neck Beard" Soap would be funny imo... (harvested locally of course)

 

[LunaSkye]

I read about this idea before as another user actually used her daughter's hair in it. I pretty interested in the effects myself, but I don't have any hair to use.

 

[CanaDawn]

silk is made up of something called fibroin and hair is keratin- you'd be closer to silk if you used spiderwebs! (I bet that would up the "ew" level, even though silk is something spit up by a 'worm'.)
I guess fibroin sometimes gets classified as beta keratin, but it seems very different at the amino acid level https://ww2.chemistry.gatech.edu/~lw26/structure/protein/fibrous/fibrous.html

 

[DiddlyO]

It was me that put my daughter's hair in a shampoo bar - I don't know if it made much of a difference, but it dissolved just fine - maybe even better than silk. She is 8 with gorgeous, pristine red hair, and I just pulled it from her hairbrush (pretty sure all of the chemicals in my hair would cause problems!). At first I was worried about the ick factor, but I got over that. I would absolutely do it again. It did smell funky, but I also used beer in the lye water. I've not repeated either yet so can't tell which was the stinker.

I don't sell so no issues there

 

[Lbrown123]

Hair ball honey soap! For cats. What a great idea! Lol!