Carrot purée
Muted orange. Fisher, The Complete Photo Guide to Soap Making primary source
Opens the calculator’s starter recipe, 1000 g of oils, with this additive at the dose it fills in, ready to change.
What it is
Carrot purée, blended smooth; its figures here are USDA’s for strained carrots, which are mostly water. Like any purée it is part of the recipe’s liquid.
USDA FoodData Central primary source, Nerius, Soapmaking for Fun & Profit primary source
How much
- 50 g per pound of oils filled in Lovely Greens supplier or guide
- 38 % of the oils (from a published recipe) Corley Barto, The Natural Soap Chef primary source
The calculator fills in 50 g per pound of oils: 110 g for the 1000 g of oils in its starter recipe.
When and how
- Usually: as the lye liquid.
- Also used: at light trace, in the water, before the lye, into the oils.
- Blend it smooth first.
- Chill it well before the lye goes in.
Corley Barto, The Natural Soap Chef primary source, Lovely Greens supplier or guide
What it does to the recipe
- 92.3 % is water, taken off the recipe’s water.
- 0.1 % is fat, which stays in the bar as extra superfat.
- 3.64 % is sugar, which heats the batch.
USDA FoodData Central primary source, Nerius, Soapmaking for Fun & Profit primary source
Worth knowing
- Caution: Blend it smooth: pieces left in the bar can spoil. Lovely Greens supplier or guide
- Too much softens the bar. Carrot pomace soap (2024) primary source
Spoons and drops
- 1 tsp ≈ 4.67 g
- 1 tbsp ≈ 14 g
- 1 cup ≈ 224 g
USDA FoodData Central primary source
INCI name
Daucus Carota Sativa Root
- CAS number
- 84929-61-3
- EC number
- 284-545-1
Guides that discuss it
Sources
David Fisher, The Complete Photo Guide to Soap Making (Creative Publishing International, 2018), p. 20: dyes "give a full range of hues—from subtle to bright and bold", but "can bleed between layers or swirls of soap, especially in melt-and-pour soap. Some are not stable in cold process soap, so test them first"; oxides "are very stable and strong in soap". Natural colours, pp. 82–84. In an infused oil: "Annatto: yellow-orange"; "Alkanet: light to deep purple, depending on the amount used"; "Paprika: orange-peach". In the lye solution: "Indigo: light to deep blue"; "Madder root: pinkish-red"; "Rose clay: deep rose pink". Added to the oils or at trace: "Activated charcoal: light gray to deep black"; "Black walnut hull (ground): speckled brown, also an exfoliant"; "Calendula flower petals (whole or ground): nice, warm yellow"; "Carrots (puréed or juiced): muted orange"; "Cinnamon: reddish tan to brown"; "Cocoa powder: tan to brown"; "Cucumber: pale yellow-green"; "Rosehips (ground): speckled reddish brown"; "Sage: muted green"; "Spirulina: pastel green/blue-green". For "a bright, white bar of soap": "Add titanium dioxide: about 1 teaspoon per 1 pound (454 g) of oils."
USDA FoodData Central, food 173506: Babyfood, vegetables, carrots, strained.
Maria Nerius, Soapmaking for Fun & Profit (1999): fruit and vegetable purée "must be calculated as a liquid".
Heidi Corley Barto, The Natural Soap Chef (Ulysses Press, 2012), chapter 5: "When adding lye to a purée, I always use an ice bath"; the purée is the lye liquid, for 566 g of oils: 215 g of chilled puréed carrots (38 % of the oils), 150 g of canned pumpkin with 65 g of water (26.5 %), 215 g of a cucumber and coconut milk purée (150 g cucumber to 100 g coconut milk). Chapter 3: sage infused in the olive oil and a sage paste at trace; peppermint tea as the lye liquid, with the steeped leaves at trace.
Lovely Greens, carrot soap: 50 g of carrot purée for a pound of oils; "Little pieces of carrots ... could cause spoilage issues".
Soap with carrot pomace at 5–15 %: "a much lower hardness than the control soap" (PMC10897409).