Lye with paprika solids

[Jumbo1982]

I recently made a nice orange soap using paprika infusion in olive oil (along with orange 10x EO and lavender EO). I poured the olive oil off the top of the compacted paprika and now have a jar with 2.5oz of paprika soaked in several ounces of oil.

Rather than toss this out, I was thinking about making another batch of a more exfoliating soap using the rest of the jar. Getting the weight of the oil will be easy since I know the weights of the jar and paprika. My question is how would I account for this much paprika in my lye calculation? Can I ignore 2.5 ounces of paprika and just proceed as usual using the weights of the oils? Or will some of the lye react with the paprika solids and result in a higher superfat in my finished soap?

My gut instinct is to lower my target superfat from 5% down to 3 or 4% , but maybe this is unnecessary. It's easy to ignore a tablespoon of something in a few pound batch of soap, but 2.5 ounces is giving me pause. I appreciate any advice. Thanks!

 

[Nona'sFarm]

If it was me, I would lower the superfat to 3% and strain the paprika infused oil before adding it into my fats. If I was to add the complete infusion, again I would add it into the oils and stick blend well before adding my lye water. If adding the complete infusion, even with the super blending, I would expect some red or brown specks from the paprika in the final soap.

 

[curlycoat2]

Was the paprika a powder when you infused it? You can reinfuse the paprika as you did before just expect the result to be half the strength of the first one approx. I reuse paprika powder after I have infused it at least once more. If you used a powder and its just a compacted powder in the bottom I would just stir it and add it like any other powdered exfoliant ie pumice. I am not sure I am understanding why you would reduce the SF? the amount of oil soaked into the paprika powder would be negligible and when you stir the powder (assuming you have used powder) you will see there isn't much oil there. You will have specks as mentioned above but if its design is to exfoliate then that is what you would expect. I dont think it will be as exfoliating as you expect depending on the batch size of course.

If it was me I would just stir the powder to loosen it and either reinfuse and use the color infusion again or throw the whole lot in the batter at trace like a normal exfoliant. And yes I have done that before - I don't adjust SF for oil left in plant matter at the bottom of the jar.

If you are talking fresh paprika that you used ignore the above

 

[Jumbo1982]

Thank you both for the replies. Yes, it was an infusion with paprika powder. I ended up not adjusting my superfat and mixed everything in with my oils. It made a dark cookie dough colored soap which I actually really like. Cheers!