Help!! Infusing powders to make natural colorants

[Jeramian]

Ok so I infused beet root, madder root, and alkanet in some sweet almond oil. The alkanet had amazing results, but the beet root, and madder root did nothing. I read a web page that mentioned infusing these, and how they worked so well, but mine didn't. Any advise on how to infuse to make a natural colorant.

 

[green soap]

If you are doing this to color soap you might want to move this question or thread to the CP soap section and you will get more responses.

Beet root will not color soap because it is pH sensitive and does not give good results for the high pH of soap. Actually it does not give good results for dying fabric or eggs either....

Madder root has worked for me, but a lot of the root is required to obtain a rather faint or weak red, very pretty but unfortunately it fades with sunlight. Not cost effective for me, but I am growing some madder root in the garden because it is a beautiful shade of red/rose/peach. If you grow it the cost is not so relevant.

Infused sweet paprika will work for a brick red, or a peach in lower concentrations, but it accelerates trace in CP soap and a weaker infusion will also fade in sunlight.

Alkanet works great and I have not found any problem with it, other than having to pay attention to any yellowing agents in the soap (either base oils or other additives) because yellow and purple makes grey.

Good luck to you and I hope this helped some.

 

[Seawolfe]

I've heard that beet root powder goes beige in soap, but I've had good results with alkanet and madder root. I used the information from Soap Making Resource here: http://www.soap-making-resource.com/madder-root-soap-making.html I also used Moroccan red clay with madder root with good results.

 

[reinbeau]

Madder root is best in the lye, but at trace you can use 1 tablespoon ppo, although 1 tsp ppo gives a nice, lighter color. It does nothing as an infusion.

 

[Jeramian]

I am not making the colorants for soap. I am using them for my body butters. I have given up on colorants in my soap. I make hot processes crock pot soap and no matter what or when I add whatever I add I end up with a dark ugly mess. So these were strictly for body butters. I heard of a company that has natural colorants however most are not oil soluble which doesn't help me much.

 

[reinbeau]

Well that's a shame. You do HP? Have you checked out ByrdiJean's videos? They might help.

It doesn't matter if you use madder in soap or body butters - the color will not infuse, it has to be in lye, or ground and added in as a powder - that might work in body butter, but it may be scratchy.

 

[Jeramian]

Ewww yeah no scratchy body butter for me. Lolol