Spider silk instead of Tussah?

[HowieRoll]

Because we live in the country/woods, cobwebs are an uphill battle in my house. It's when the sun shines in and you can see the new ones that cropped up that it's a pain, but when it's cloudy and you can't see them, they don't exist, right?

The wheels in my head are spinning now, wondering if I could open up our house to people who want cobwebs and market it as a U-Pick scenario, just like strawberry fields or apple orchards. And for a nominal extra fee, maybe I could charge for people to do a little light dusting, too? :grin:

 

[Kismet]

I always keep at least one spider in my kitchen (to catch any fruit flies) and one in my weaving studio (to catch any wool moths). They are all small and they are all named Charlotte. Spiders aren't able to see more tha eight inches in front of themselves, so I never feel threatened or spied upon. :~)

One of the first soaps I made was with tussah silk that was sent to me in a grab bag. It took a long time to dissolve - it seemed so anyway - and I stirred the lye until it mostly disappeared. The soap was beautiful, but I don't know how much had to do to the addition of the silk or the combination of the oils and shea butter. That company sent me another sample of silk, so I will try to reproduce the recipe.

 

[DeeAnna]

I have lots of spiders in the house and around the yard too -- the U-pick plan is a great one!

I now know why the creepy old movies had those ropy, lacy cobwebs festooning the crystal chandeliers and doorways. That really does happen, but I never saw it until I lived in the place I do now -- a house that we converted from an old barn. The ceiling in the living room (former hay mow) is 22 feet above the floor, so it's tough to dust up that high very often.

The cobweb spiders are nearly invisible, but it's amazing how fast they spin their webs and then how fast those webs turn into cobwebs. The cobwebs get pretty amazingly creepy-movie large.

 

[dibbles]

Hi there!
Newbie interjecting and i am just flooding my brain with info on how to make soap.
But this is super interesting. Silk in soap? That is a thing?!? What does it do and how do you use it?

Silk in soap is definitely a thing. Most people who use silk use tussah silk, and lots of suppliers carry it. I bought mine from Bramble Berry. A small amount is added to the water before the lye. The silk dissolves as the lye is stirred. I always strain my lye water when using silk because I often can see a small bit of silk fiber left behind.

 

[dixiedragon]

Hi there!
Newbie interjecting and i am just flooding my brain with info on how to make soap.
But this is super interesting. Silk in soap? That is a thing?!? What does it do and how do you use it?

Some folks feel it contributes to a different feel to the soap. Some people feel it's more about label appeal.

There are a few ways to do it. You could start cheap - get an old silk shirt or tie (a pale color is better), and snip it into pieces smaller than 1 square inch. Drop a few in your lye water. You can also buy tussah silk - if you have a nice yarn store that serves spinners, they may have some. You can also buy a bottle of silk proteins which is already in liquid form.

 

[Rune]

I really hope that anyone using spider silk really advertise it, in big letters, so that people are aware. I would throw up for days in a row if I got to know that a soap that I have bought AND used did contain spider silk. I would also take a shower in pure bleach and other chemicals to get it all off. I could not even read the comments on this thread, only a few, because I felt sick already just by the thinking of it. Who on earth could possibly want to use the worst creature on earth to make soap? Maybe I am too afraid of spiders. I actually flush them down the toilet two times. And between the first and second time, I don't take my eyes of the toilet for one second. I am afraid they will crawl up again. Sometimes I also lay toilet paper on top of the water, after the second flush, so to make a barrier they can't come thru. I would definately prefer poisonous snakes instead of spiders. Non of them we have in Norway are any dangerous. But that does not help a bit. We don't have snakes either, or any dangerous animals, so there is plenty of time to be afraid of spiders, since there is nothing else to fear. In the south, they have two sorts of snakes. One of them is a little dangerous, but nothing really bad. We have tics, not so much here in the north. But they can be really bad. And poisonous plants, but they are no harm unless you eat them. Immigrants from Asia do. They run out in the forest and pick a lot of mushrooms, the precise same mushroom as they are used to eating in Asia. Like Thailand and such places. What they don't know is that it just looks the same, but is for sure not. So every year immigrants have to be hospitalized. I don't think everybody survive either. Norwegians don't pick mushrooms without knowing exactly what species it is. And there are mushroom control centers across the country. So people should not really eat any mushroom at all that has not been examinated and approved by a mushroom control unit. But immigrants don't know that. And whole families are really seriously poisoned or killed by often quite small amounts.

I will never put real silk in my soap recipes either. What if that silk comes from China. No one has any guarantee that they have not cheated and used cheap spiders instead to make fake silk. So no, I don't take the chance. I will use corn flour as a silk substitute. But maybe potato starch is better? It does have a more silky feel to it than corn flour. But how it will behave in a soap, I don't know.