Properly preparing dried herbs

[Jessa]

I recently went to my local herb shop and bought bags of my favorite dried goods. I am thinking of incorporating it into CP soaps however, I've been scarred and hesitant on using any food ingredients since I played around with a few in melt and pour.

MP mishaps: I used coffee grounds and my bars ended up brown, fuzzy, and moldy. I didn't realize I had to brew the coffee first. I used tumeric in a MP batch and it ended up smelling rancid.

I want to conquer my food additive fears lol. For CP, do I need to brew these herbs and then dry them? Can I ground these into powder and just add the powder at trace?

 

[Obsidian]

You can grind them and add at trace, no need to cook them.
Same with coffee grounds, when using them in CP, you don't have to use brewed grounds.

 

[Obsidian]

I should add that most herbs will turn brown in soap and any scent/medicinal qualities won't survive the lye.
They tend to be scratchy too, so keep that in mind and don't use too much.

 

[lsg]

Calendula petals are the only dried flowers that looked good in my CP soap. The rest will turn brown looking. You can use them to decorate the top of your soap.

 

[Jessa]

You can grind them and add at trace, no need to cook them.
Same with coffee grounds, when using them in CP, you don't have to use brewed grounds.

I should add that most herbs will turn brown in soap and any scent/medicinal qualities won't survive the lye.
They tend to be scratchy too, so keep that in mind and don't use too much.

Yes!!! Not having to cook or brew the herbs is a huge relief! Haha.

I was thinking of throwing the herbs into a food processor and grinding them down as much as possible. Hopefully this will help reduce the scratchiness. What do you think?

I forgot most herbs will turn soap brown! Are there any natural colorants that offset this?

For ex. I have some matcha tea and am thinking of using it to color and brighten the soap to a mellow green . The tea is a bit old though (1-2 years old) so I probably shouldn’t...

 

[Nanette]

Grind your herbs very finely...big pieces will get moldy in soap, and the dried herb will absorb moisture and get "bigger " in your soap so really fine grind. I have seen some beautiful matcha tea soaps....there is a thread here somewhere. Whether or not your soap turns brown depends on how much herb you add. I havent had that happen, tho the herb itself will turn brown as Obsidian said.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Check out Post #111 here:https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/starting-my-soaping-journey.74023/page-6#post-775416 for ideas on using tea, etc.

Greens tend not to stick very well in soap.

A word of warning - one of my very early CP soaps was a lemon and rosemary - with dried rosemary. I used a bar and decided it was horrible! I did grind the rosemary so it was fine-ish, but as i used the bar the bits all stuck out like a hedgehog and were very unsightly. The fact that I used a lot didn't help. next time I'd go for only a teaspoon maximum PPO.

Here's a pic of the bars before use (very innocent looking - but don't be fooled):

 

[Nanette]

Ha! You dont need any exfoliants when you add dried herbs....