Adding activated charcoal making soap whiter!?!

[aab1]

A while ago I made a cedar wood scented soap and wanted to make it a dark green so I added green chrome oxide and activated charcoal and even ended up adding more and more charcoal as it didn't seem to affect the color much.

The final soaps actually turned up whiter/lighter than a spearmint batch I had made with just green chrome oxide (in the same or lesser quantity if I remember well since I wanted the cedar ones to be darker).

Did I not use enough charcoal? How much should I use ppo?

I actually chopped up orange soaps I had made and want to make a confetti soap with a black base and orange patterns as a Halloween soap. How much charcoal ppo will I need to get a black soap but not overly black either. Can the charcoal stain washcloths at levels high enough to make the soap black?

Thanks

 

[Ancel]

For my charcoal soaps I use up to 3 tablespoons ppo - extremely black soap! I think you could use less than that and it still be effective. Just add to your batter until you like the look. The lather can be a little black at this amount, but it washes clean.


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[aab1]

Thanks, I had used much less charcoal than that thinking it would color as much as oxides but still used more than I do oxides.

I'm thinking of making a batch and splitting it mid-process into one batch of black and orange soaps and one batch of white and orange soaps.

Thanks

 

[aab1]

I just made them, I added my chopped orange soaps into my uncolored (other than from the orange EO) soap batter I made to fill five 8 cavity silicone molds (taking into account the weight of the added soap chunks), then poured it into three 8 cavity molds, added 3 tbsp ppo of charcoal to what was left of the mixture which made it dark black (despite them being salt soaps with 100% as much salt as oil) and poured it into the remaining two 8 cavity molds. I'll have 24 light orange soaps with orange chunks and 16 black soaps with orange chunks as a Halloween soap (I realize it's a bit late but they'll be ready to use before Halloween).

I can't wait to see and try these black soaps with orange patterns inside, they are the first black soaps I've made.

Thanks