When I think of wine production, my mind immediately jumps to beautiful images of Napa Valley in California. But, you may be surprised to know that Washington state is the 2nd largest wine producer in the United States. Most of the wine is produced in Eastern Washington, where temperatures are warmer. To highlight this ingredient in my local area, the water in this recipe is swapped for wine produced in Washington state.

Working with wine in soap is not particularly difficult, but it does require some extra prep work. Alcohol and cold process soap don’t mix very well. So, when incorporating alcoholic beverages into  recipes (such as beer, wine, etc.) the liquid needs to be boiled first to remove the majority of the alcohol. Then, I like to freeze the liquid and add the sodium hydroxide lye to the frozen liquid to keep temperatures cool.

Alternative liquids like wine have extra sugar, which scorches when mixed with lye. If the temperature of the liquid is kept cool, less scorching occurs. This keeps the liquid a slightly lighter color and reduces the unpleasant odor. Red wine is already quite dark, so if you’d like to skip freezing the wine you could. Keep in mind your soap batter might be slightly darker (and stinkier!). If you skip the freezing step, I do recommend allowing the wine to 50  ° F or cooler before adding the sodium hydroxide lye. Learn more about working with alcoholic beverages in soap here.

The red wine gives the soap batter a dark tan color. Titanium dioxide combats this a bit, creating a creamier color. A combination of Queen’s Purple Mica and Merlot Sparkle Mica create a rich burgundy-wine color. Berrywine Fragrance Oil gives the soap a realistic and slightly fruity scent. Berrywine Fragrance Oil does not smell great out of the bottle, but it smells good in soap – promise!

Using a local wine is a great way to highlight local ingredients and show off your hometown pride!

What You’ll Need:
Silicone Column Mold
25 oz. Swirl Quick Mix
7.4 oz. Prepped Wine (10% water discount)
3.5 oz. Sodium Hydroxide Lye
1.5 oz. Berrywine Fragrance Oil
Titanium Dioxide
Queen’s Purple Mica
Merlot Sparkle Mica

Click here to add everything you need for this project to your Bramble Berry shopping cart!

If you’ve never made Cold Process soap before, stop here! I highly recommend checking out our FREE four part SoapQueen.tv series on Cold Process Soapmaking, especially the episode on lye safety. And if you’d rather do some reading, Bramble Berry carries a wide range of books on the topic, including my newest book, Pure Soapmaking. You can also checkout the digital downloads for that instant gratification factor.

WINE PREP: The first step is to prep the wine for soaping. This should be done the day before you’d like to make soap. Alcohol and soaping don’t mix very well, so the wine needs to boiled to remove the majority of the alcohol. Add the wine to a saucepan. I would recommend adding about 1.5x-2x more than you need, because the wine boils off. For this recipe, I would recommend adding 12 ounces.

Bring the wine to a steady boil for 5-7 minutes. Do not leave the wine unattended or it could boil over. Once it has boiled, remove from the heat and weigh the amount you need in a separate container. If you have more wine than you need, save it for another batch. If you don’t have enough, don’t worry. Add distilled water to the boiled wine to make up for any amount of liquid that you’re missing.

Once you have the correct amount of wine, pour it into ice cube trays (in this case we used Medium 9 Ball Silicone Molds). Place the prepped wine into the freezer and allow it to fully freeze. Once it’s frozen, place the wine ice cubes into a heat safe container suitable for mixing lye.

SAFETY FIRST: Suit up for safe handling practices! That means goggles, gloves and long sleeves. Make sure kids, pets, and other distractions and tripping hazards are out of the house or don’t have access to your soaping space.

With your safety gear on, measure out the sodium hydroxide lye into a separate container. Then, add about 1/4 of the lye flakes directly to the frozen wine. Slowly, start to mix the two together.

It takes a few minutes to get started, but the lye will begin to warm up the wine ice cubes and they will begin to melt. You will start to notice an unpleasant odor, and the color of the wine will change (notice the green hue in the photo below). Continue adding the lye flakes to the wine cubes. This process can take a while, so patience is key.

Once all the wine-ice has melted, continue to stir for several minutes. Make sure all the lye flakes have completely melted. In the photo below, all the ice is melted but there was still some lye flakes at the bottom of the mixture. Keep stirring until all the flakes are gone. This can take up to 10-15 minutes of stirring (patience is key!). To be extra safe, some soapers like to pour the lye mixture through a non-reactive mesh strainer to make sure all the flakes are gone.

Once the lye and wine are completely incorporated, we are ready to soap! Label the container of lye “DANGER: DO NOT TOUCH” and set it aside. Time to prep the other ingredients.

FRAGRANCE PREP: Measure out 1.5 oz. of Berrywine Fragrance Oil into a glass, fragrance oil safe container. Set aside.

COLOR PREP: To ensure that the Titanium Dioxide blends smoothly into the soap batter, we recommend micronizing it before dispersing it in oil. Please note this is an optional tip but it does help with the titanium dioxide clumping in the soap. To micronize colorant, simply use a coffee grinder to blend the colorant to break up any clumps of color and prevent streaks of white from showing in the final soap. We like to use a coffee grinder that has a removable, stainless steel mixing area for easy cleaning. Then, disperse 4 teaspoons of the colorant into 3 tablespoons of sunflower or sweet almond oil (or any other liquid oil). The color dispersion is slightly more concentrated to avoid adding too much extra oil. Then in separate containers, disperse 1 teaspoon Queen’s Purple Mica and 1 teaspoon Merlot Sparkle Mica into 1 tablespoon lightweight liquid oil. Use a mini mixer to help get rid of any clumps.

ONE: Fully melt the entire bag of Swirl Quick Mix until completely clear and there is no cloudiness. Shake the bag to mix up all the oils. Measure 25 oz. into your soaping bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of the dispersed titanium dioxide directly to the oils. Stick blend the colorant into the oils until they are completely combined. Adding the titanium dioxide to the oils helps get rid of more chunks in the colorant, and can be stick blended thoroughly without accelerating trace.

TWO: Add the lye water to the oils and stick blend until thin trace. If you’d like a harder bar of soap that releases faster from the mold, you can add sodium lactate to the cooled lye water. Use 1 teaspoon of sodium lactate per pound of oils in the recipe. For this recipe, you’d add about 1.5 tsp. sodium lactate. Notice the color change of the soap batter!

THREE: Once you have reached a thin trace, split the batch in half. Each container should have about 500 mL of soap. To one container, add all the dispersed Merlot Sparkle Mica and all the dispersed Queen’s Purple Mica. To the other container of soap, add the remaining dispersed titanium dioxide. Use a whisk to thoroughly mix in the colorants.

FOUR: Add half of the Berrywine Fragrance Oil to one container of soap, and the other half of the fragrance oil to the other container (it’s okay to eyeball it). Use a whisk to thoroughly mix in the fragrance oil.

FIVE: Pour some of tan soap into the mold, while counting to “1,2,3.” Then, pour the wine colored soap into the cream, directly in the center of the mold while counting to “1,2,3.” Counting helps keep the pours consistent. The colors should break through to the layer below.

SIX: Continue pouring each color into the mold, directly in the center. Continue pouring until the mold is completely full.

SEVEN: While firmly holding on to the seals on the sides of the mold, very lightly tap the mold on the counter. Don’t tap too firmly, or the seal of the mold can unlock and your soap will spill everywhere! Set the mold aside in a safe area where it will not topple over.

Because of the extra sugar in the wine, this soap does have a tendency to warm up. Our soaping area is pretty cold this time of year, so we left the soap at room temperature for 3-4 days before unmolding. If you live in a hot climate, you may want to place the soap into the fridge for the first 3-4 hours to prevent overheating. Allow the soap to stay in the mold for 3-4 days. Because of the amount of colorant/extra oil in the recipe, we found it took a little longer to unmold. Once unmolded, slice into bars and allow to cure for 4-6 weeks. Enjoy!

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How to Make Soap with Wine

This recipe uses red wine instead of distilled water. Give yourself an extra day to prep the wine!

Author Soap Queen

Ingredients

• Silicone Column Mold
• 25 oz. Swirl Quick Mix
• 7.4 oz. Prepped Wine 10% water discount
• 3.5 oz. Sodium Hydroxide Lye
• 1.5 oz. Berrywine Fragrance Oil
• Titanium Dioxide
• Queen’s Purple Mica
• Merlot Sparkle Mica

Instructions

WINE PREP: The first step is to prep the wine for soaping. This should be done the day before you’d like to make soap. Alcohol and soaping don’t mix very well, so the wine needs to boiled to remove the majority of the alcohol. Add the wine to a saucepan. I would recommend adding about 1.5x-2x more than you need, because the wine boils off. For this recipe, I would recommend adding 12 ounces.<br>Bring the wine to a steady boil for 5-7 minutes. Do not leave the wine unattended or it could boil over. Once it has boiled, remove from the heat and weigh the amount you need in a separate container. If you have more wine than you need, save it for another batch. If you don’t have enough, don’t worry. Add distilled water to the boiled wine to make up for any amount of liquid that you’re missing.<br>Once you have the correct amount of wine, pour it into ice cube trays (in this case we used Medium 9 Ball Silicone Molds). Place the prepped wine into the freezer and allow it to fully freeze. Once it’s frozen, place the wine ice cubes into a heat safe container suitable for mixing lye.

Suit up for safe handling practices! That means goggles, gloves and long sleeves. Make sure kids, pets, and other distractions and tripping hazards are out of the house or don’t have access to your soaping space.<br>With your safety gear on, measure out the sodium hydroxide lye into a separate container. Then, add about 1/4 of the lye flakes directly to the frozen wine. Slowly, start to mix the two together.<br>It takes a few minutes to get started, but the lye will begin to warm up the wine ice cubes and they will begin to melt. You will start to notice an unpleasant odor, and the color of the wine will change (notice the green hue in the photo below). Continue adding the lye flakes to the wine cubes and continue to stir. This process can take a while, so patience is key.<br>Once all the wine-ice has melted, continue to stir for several minutes. You need to make sure all the lye flakes have completely melted. In the photo below, all the ice is melted but there was still some lye flakes at the bottom of the mixture. Keep stirring until all the flakes are gone. This can take up to 10-15 minutes. To be extra safe, some soapers like to pour their lye mixture through a non-reactive mesh strainer to make sure all the flakes are gone.Once the lye and wine are completely incorporated, we are ready to soap! Label the container of lye “DANGER: DO NOT TOUCH” and set it aside. Time to prep the other ingredients.

FRAGRANCE PREP: Measure out 1.5 oz. of Berrywine Fragrance Oil into a glass, fragrance oil safe container. Set aside.

COLOR PREP: To ensure that the Titanium Dioxide blends smoothly into the soap batter, we recommend micronizing it before dispersing it in oil. Please note this is an optional tip but it does help with the titanium dioxide clumping in the soap. To micronize colorant, simply use a coffee grinder to blend the colorant to break up any clumps of color and prevent streaks of white from showing in the final soap. We like to use a coffee grinder that has a removable, stainless steel mixing area for easy cleaning. Then, disperse 4 teaspoons of the colorant into 3 tablespoons of sunflower or sweet almond oil (or any other liquid oil). The color dispersion is slightly more concentrated to avoid adding too much extra oil. Then in separate containers, disperse 1 teaspoon Queen’s Purple Mica and 1 teaspoon Merlot Sparkle Mica into 1 tablespoon lightweight liquid oil. Use a mini mixer to help get rid of any clumps.

• Fully melt the entire bag of Swirl Quick Mix until completely clear and there is no cloudiness. Shake the bag to mix up all the oils. Measure 25 oz. into your soaping bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of the dispersed titanium dioxide and add it directly to the oils. Stick blend the colorant into the oils until they are completely combined. Adding the titanium dioxide to the oils helps get rid of more chunks in the colorant, and can be stick blended thoroughly without accelerating trace.
• Add the lye water to the oils and stick blend until thin trace. If you’d like a harder bar of soap that releases faster from the mold, you can add sodium lactate to the cooled lye water. Use 1 teaspoon of sodium lactate per pound of oils in the recipe. For this recipe, you’d add about 1.5 tsp. sodium lactate. Notice the color change of the soap batter!
• Once you have reached a thin trace, split the batch in half. Each container should have about 500 mL of soap. To one container, add all the dispersed Merlot Sparkle Mica and all the dispersed Queen’s Purple Mica. To the other container of soap, add the remaining dispersed titanium dioxide. Use a whisk to thoroughly mix in the colorants.
• Add half of the Berrywine Fragrance Oil to one container of soap, and the other half of the fragrance oil to the other container (it’s okay to eyeball it). Use a whisk to thoroughly mix in the fragrance oil.
• Pour some of tan soap into the mold, while counting to “1,2,3.” Then, pour the wine colored soap into the cream, directly in the center of the mold while counting to “1,2,3.” Counting helps keep the pours consistent. The colors should break through to the layer below.
• Continue pouring each color into the mold, directly in the center. Continue pouring until the mold is completely full.
• While firmly holding on to the seals on the sides of the mold, very lightly tap the mold on the counter. Don’t tap too firmly, or the seal of the mold can unlock and your soap will spill everywhere! Set the mold aside in a safe area where it will not topple over. Because of the extra sugar in the wine, this soap does have a tendency to warm up. Our soaping area is pretty cold this time of year, so we left the soap at room temperature for 3-4 days before unmolding. If you live in a hot climate, you may want to place the soap into the fridge for the first 3-4 hours to prevent overheating. Allow the soap to stay in the mold for 3-4 days. Because of the amount of colorant/extra oil in the recipe, we found it took a little longer to unmold. Once unmolded, slice into bars and allow to cure for 4-6 weeks. Enjoy!

The post How to Make Soap with Wine appeared first on Soap Queen.

To prepare sodium hydroxide lye for soapmaking, it needs to be dissolved in some type of liquid. The dissolved lye solution is then emulsified with oils to create soap. Distilled water is usually the liquid of choice for dissolving lye. But, some soapers prefer to use other liquids such as milk, tea or alcoholic beverages. Using alternative liquids (anything other than distilled water) in cold process soap is an intermediate to advanced soaping technique. It requires a few extra steps to prep and can affect other aspects of the soaping process.

One of the most popular types of alternative liquids for cold process soap is alcoholic beverages. This includes beer, wine and champagne. These liquids contain sugar, which give the soap a stable and fluffy lather. Alcoholic beverages can also give the soap color and are great from a marketing standpoint. Some alcoholic beverages do contain beneficial properties like antioxidants, but it is debatable whether these properties make it through the saponification process.

Making soap with alcoholic beverages poses a few challenges. They contain sugar that becomes very hot when mixed with sodium hydroxide lye. This turns the liquid a deep color due to the sugars scorching and can cause an unpleasant aroma. In addition to sugar, alcoholic beverages contain...you guessed it! Alcohol. Alcohol and the saponifcation process don’t mix very well. In addition, many alcoholic beverages such as beer and champagne are carbonated. Carbonation and the saponification process don’t mix very well either.

The key to eliminating the alcohol and carbonation is to boil the liquid prior to using it for soap. This cooks off the alcohol, leaving behind a liquid that works better in cold process soap. Adding lye to alcohol or carbonated beverages can cause an eruption, so boiling the beverage is extremely important. If using a carbonated beverage, many soapers allow the beverage to go flat for several days then boil it to remove the alcohol. I’ve prepared my alcoholic liquid both ways, with similar results.

Beer, wine and champagne all contain a smaller amount of alcohol than spirits (hard liquor). In general, I don’t recommend using hard alcohol as the liquid in your soap. It can be done, but it’s a very advanced technique. There is a lot of alcohol to boil out in hard liquor, and it will cause your soap to accelerate. If you’d like to use a spirit in your soap, I recommend using a very small amount and supplementing the remaining liquor with distilled water, beer, wine or champagne.

The key to using alcoholic beverages in cold process soap is to boil the liquid first to reduce the alcohol and carbonation. 

To prepare the alcoholic liquid, first weigh how much you’ll need for the total recipe. You can substitute 100% of the recipe’s liquid with beer, wine, etc., or you can substitute a portion and use distilled water for the remainder. Just keep in mind that the more alternative liquid you use, the more natural sugars it will add to your recipe. It may also give your recipe a darker colored batter, because the liquid will darken as the lye is added and the natural sugars scorch.

I always recommend boiling more liquid than you actually need in your recipe. This is because as the liquid boils, some of it evaporates and you may end up not having enough. If this happens, you can always add more distilled water to the liquid to make up for what was lost. It’s important to have enough liquid for the recipe because the liquid acts as the very important carrier for the sodium hydroxide. For example, let’s say your recipe calls for 10 ounces of liquid. To be on the safe side, I would boil about 12-14 ounces of my alcoholic beverage to account for the volume it will lose. Once it’s done boiling, eyeball the volume measurements and weigh the liquid again to make sure you have enough. If I were to weigh my liquid and only end up with 8 ounces and from the volume measurements, it was clear I was short on liquid, I could add 2 ounces of distilled water to make up for what was lost. Or, I could just use the 8 ounces and consider it a very heavy “water” discount. Click here to learn more about water discounting.

After boiling the liquid, it will be less in volume and weight. Make sure to eyeball the volume and weight the liquid after boiling to find out how much boiled-down alcohol you’re actually working with. 

Once the alcohol has been boiled to remove the alcohol and carbonation, it needs to cool. You can place the liquid in the fridge to thoroughly chill, or you can freeze it and add the lye flakes to the frozen liquid. The colder the liquid, the less the sugars in the liquid will scorch when the lye is added. Less scorching means the liquid will not turn as dark and won’t smell quite as much. But freezing the liquid prior to adding the lye won’t prevent it from discoloring entirely. Adding the lye to the cool liquid slowly also helps keep the soap temperature down and preserves a lighter color.

In my book, Pure Soapmaking, one of the recipes uses a mixture of rose wine and champagne (see the final bars here). After the mixture is boiled to help remove alcohol and carbonation, the mixture is frozen. Then, the lye is added directly to the frozen liquid. As the lye is added to the frozen wine blend, the liquid begins to melt as the temperature increases. The increase of temperature causes the sugars to burn the liquids slightly, causing the color to change from a light pink to a deep orange (see bottom right photo). If the wine blend wasn’t frozen prior to adding the lye, the lye solution would have become much hotter, which would have resulted in a darker liquid.

Freezing alternative liquids prior to adding the lye helps prevent the liquid from burning, but won’t always prevent it entirely! Photos by Lara Ferroni. 

After the lye is added to the liquids, allow it to cool to appropriate soaping temperatures (we like soaping around 100-130 °F). Once the solution is cool, it’s ready to use just like lye solution made with water. Keep in mind that the lye solution made with alcoholic beverages contain sugar. This will cause your trace to move quickly. When working with alternative liquids, I prefer to use a slow moving recipe with plenty of liquid oils.

Using alcoholic liquids with sugars will cause an increase in temperature. This means the soap will be more likely to go through gel phase. This is also true for soap made with honey, milk or purees. ‘Gelling’ and ‘gel phasing’ in cold process soap refers to a part of the saponification (soapmaking) process where the soap gets warm and gelatinous – up to 180 degrees. If you’d like to learn more about gel phase, click here. If you’d like your soap to go through gel phase, keep it warm but be careful to not over insulate as too much heat could cause a volcano. If you want to prevent gel phase, I recommend soaping cooler and placing the soap in the fridge or freezer for several hours up to overnight to keep temperatures cool.

Once the soap is made, soap made with alcoholic beverages still need 4 to 6 weeks of cure time. The smell of the beverage will not last through the saponification process. Using alcoholic beverages does not affect the shelf life of the soap, as all the sugars in the liquid go through the saponification process and turn into soap. The sugars will add to a stable and fluffy lather!

If you’d like to learn more about making soap with beer or other alcoholic beverages, check out the tutorials and blog posts below! In addition, making soap with alcoholic beverages is similar to making soap with other sugary liquids like milk, so you may find those blog posts helpful as well. 
Bramble Beer Soap
Luck of the Green Beer (CP Tutorial)
Black and Tan Beer Soap
Advanced Oatmeal Stout CP
Guest Tutorial: Marbled Beer Soap
How to Add Lye to Milk for Cold Process Soap

The post How to Use Alcoholic Beverages in Cold Process Soap appeared first on Soap Queen.