After reading about the wonderful healing powers of jurema and its use in treating skin conditions, I would like to make some soap to help one of my teenage sons treat his keratosis.

Does anyone have any information on the correct procedure for this. Are the oils and tannins used or can the complete root bark melange be included? Any ideas on the concentration to use in the soap?

best regards, OF

Hi there,

I make my own soap as a general hobby.

What you need to do is basically make a standard soap (using whatever oils you like) and use mimosa hostilis extract as an additive. If you want to make soap only from MHRB you won't be able to get enough triglycerides (even from 1 kilo of mimosa) to make 1/100 of a soap bar!!! So you need to use the MHRB extract as an additive.

I usually use a combination of different oils for the soap, basically it's a mixture of olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, jojoba oil, castor oil, coca butter and he uses aloe vera juice as additive. In your case the extra additive can be MHRB extract.

Soap does not need to be as a complicated mixture as described above however. But you need a good "base" to work on. I recommend using all these oils:

1.olive oil as a main oil - it;s an excellent oil highly valued for its action on the skin.
2.coconut oil - gives an amazing lather to the soap
3.palm oil or castor oil for more firmness and quicker maturity.
4.Definitely some jojoba oil if the soap is intended for "healing" purposes. Jojoba oil can be used in small amounts and it is a carrier for substances through the skin (in a similar way DMSO is)
5. the MHRB extract.

If you're fine with these for the moment I can make a recipe for you.

Hope that helps,

Thanks, Infundibulum,

A recipe would be fantastic. I'll start gathering ingredients, but I'm a little worried about the DMSO effects though (he's still a little young for hyperspace).

regards, OF

No problem, you won't use dmso anyway!

You know that you'll also need some lye and water, right?

As of MHRB, a guesstimate would be to use 20-50g per 500gr of (final) soap. And please note that I've never made soap using MHRB, so I can only advise and guide you using my experience from other soapmaking experiments as well as chemistry!

So I read up on the DSMO thread and found out that it doesn't work easily for dmt compounds, so I guess there's not much to be worried about with the jojoba oil.

I have made soap before, albeit as a simple childhood experiment using lye and water and margarine, with salt to precipitate out the soap. I am betting your recipe will produce a superior product.

regards, OF

So, based on a small quantity, cold process recipe, i'm guessing:

300 ml olive oil
300 ml coconut oil
300 ml palm oil
100 ml jojoba oil
50 g MHRB

50 g lye
150 ml water

Dissolve lye in water and allow to cool to about 35 deg C

Warm mixure of oils to about 35 deg C and stir in MHRB a little at a time until well blended

Add this mixture to the lye solution

Stir like the wind until an emulsion starts to form and pour into molds

Leave 3 days to finish saponifaction, remove from molds and dry

Comments please?

OF

It's so nice to see somebody finding the other uses for these botanicals!

San Pedro can be made into a shampoo!

Hi again,

Your numbers are a way off, you really do not need loads of coconut, palm or jojoba oil (esp jojoba which is expensive and does not have many saponifiable fats!). You would also need much more lye for the amount of fats you state.

A good recipe would be:

300g olive oil
100g coconut oil
100g palm oil
25g jojoba oil.

[[[Note that oils are measured in GRAMS (i.e. weight) when making oil, not ML (i.e. volume). If you don't know the density of each oil you cannot convert ml to grams. All calculations for the amount of lye are based in grams.]]]

Now we go to the lye. If you add too much lye the soap will become pretty caustic, that is you wash yourself and skin fells off. If you add too little then not all of teh oils will saponify and the soap will be runny and oily. You need the right amount. Another concern is that if you add the MHRB during teh saponification you'll most likely destroy most of its pharmaceutical value due to the high ph.

So, for the recipe above do the following:

1. Extract your MHRB (20-50g) as you would normally do, (simmer in warm water for 30min, then strain and simmer again, do this thing 3 times like an acid cook but DO NOT ADD ANY ACID!!!)


2. Concentrate the MHRB aqueous extract to 50-60ml. Leave aside for the moment

3. get 71g of lye and dissolve it in 130ml of water. 71 grams is 71 grams, not so don't really go below 70 or above 72! Be totally careful here, do not use any metallic items/containers; if you need to stir use a wooden spoon or similar. Let it cool down. This concentration of lye is insanely strong.

4. Melt all the oils together, allow to cool

5. Mix the liquid oils with the lye. A good temperature for the saponification is 25-30 Celsius. Wait till both the oils and the lye solution cool to around 25-30 C, then mix them together.

6....and stir gently over a period of 30min. maybe 1-2 hours. During this step the oils will be saponifying and the mixture will be thickening. Lye is also getting used up and solution becomes less alkaline by time.

7.When it is thick enough, but not too thick to pour in a container, add the 50-60ml of MHRB extract in the soap mixture and stir.

8. Finally add it in a shallow tray and let it alone to thicken. After 2-3 days the soap will be hard enough to cut in soap bars. Do this but do not use it straignt away. This soap will be still immature and alkaline, not not not good for the skin. Allow it to mature for at least a month (in which period the saponification completes, no lye is left back in the soap and teh soap hardens properly and does not melt away after 3-4 uses.

Note in steps 1-2 you would be better of doing an ethanolic extraction of MHRB, say using 50% alcohol with no heat. You'll pull much more stuff and maybe more compound with pharmaceutical applications and there will be no heat to potentially destroy them.

Have fun!

Thank you Infunibulum,

My guess was based on some generic recipies for small amounts of soap, thanks for your correction and expertise. I now understand about adding the mhrb essence after saponification to preserve it's goodness. I will try using the cold alcoholic infusion to maximize the variety of substances extracted from the jurema. Do you think this amount of alcohol will cause the soap to turn transparent?

best regards, OF

No, the alcohol will not really damage the soap. I have been adding in the past acetone as well as alcoholic extracts (usually 50% alcohol or the cheapest vodka) and the only thing that I have seen happening is that sometimes the soap hardens a bit faster. So just to be on the safe side, as long as you add the MHRB ethanolic extract, mix well and fast before transferring into the shallow tray.

Note that as I said saponification will take a month to complete, so blending the ethanolic or even aqueous extracts with the still liquid-not completely saponified mixture some goodies will anyway get destroyed! It'll be better therefore to try and add an extract of at least 20g, even maybe 50g of MHRB again to be on the safe side and ensure that actives will be present!


Have fun making the soap and please post pictures!