Herbs creating brown spots in my soap. Is this common?

[anani]

Hello...I recently made a gorgeous batch of Cucumber Mint soap. It turned out just beautiful with a creamy appearance ( I used T. Dioxide) and a really pretty soft green. I decided to add a small amount of finely ground, dried mint leaves and just loved the way the whole thing looked. Alas...after a few days there were little brown spots surrounding or touching nearly every little bit of mint leaf.
My question is....will this happen every time I add some sort of dried herb directly into a batch of soap?

I should mention that I soap at room temp and don't gel. The loaves go directly into the fridge for a day or two.

Thanks for any help!

 

[eyeroll]

Unfortunately, that has happened to me every time I added botanicals to soap (I've used sage leaves and cranberry seeds so far). I'll be following this thread to see if there are any suggestions on preventing or mitigating this.

 

[paillo]

Yes, unfortunately this will happen if you incorporate the botanicals into the soap batter. Calendula holds its lovely color without browning. Someone mentioned parsley keeping its color too. Early on in my soaping days I tried a lot of botanicals. All of them except calendula wound up looking like little mouse turds in the soap (I didn't try parsley). I've had better results with botanicals on top, but don't do that much any more, not sure why. Eucalyptus leaves did well for me, and cornflowers, love the blue cornflowers.

 

[fuzz-juzz]

It will unfortunately. I've learned that the hard way as well. You can try using calendula petals. They retain their natural color. I love calendula in soap, I just sprinkle a bit into uncolored soap for lovely natural look.

 

[Obsidian]

I've used parsley and it stayed green. It does fade some but it least it didn't turn brown.

 

[anani]

wound up looking like little mouse turds in the soap (I didn't try parsley). I've had better results with botanicals on top, but don't do that much any more, not sure why. Eucalyptus leaves did well for me, and cornflowers, love the blue cornflowers.

LOL! Little brown mouse turds... Yes that's pretty much exactly what the spots looked like!

 

[Derpina Bubbles]

I've just started playing with vitamin E and dried herbs in soap batter to see if the vitamin E helps. I mix the Vitamin E in at trace and then add the botanicals to see if it helps some of them from going brown and streaky. I haven't tried it with many herbs but here's an example. This green soaps have tea tree powder, one with vit E, one without (I forgot to add it). The difference between these 2 is why I've started playing with the vit E. Another lot are calendula with and without. Dried Rosemary worked the same as the tea tree but can't find where I put the rotters to take a pic. My photos are terrible, but basically so far, with vitamin E in the batch I got less or no bleeding from the herbs. I'm going to keep trying different herbs for kicks.

 

[anani]

Thanks so much everyone for your suggestions! :smile: This really helped.