Pencil line bleeding?

[grayceworks]

I made a beautiful pencil line with cocoa powder in my castile soap, and for some reason, it's bleeding into the soap! so that there's horrible brown smudges along the entire length of the once-crisp line. Why????

No colorant was used in the soap, and it is 100% 00 soap, with lavender and peppermint EO for fragrance. That's it.

 

[karenbeth]

Unfortunately cocoa often bleeds, had it happen when I used it as a colourant

 

[Obsidian]

My carob powder pencil line bled too but I still like the look.

 

[grayceworks]

Ok, so it's just the nature of it then, huh? Interestingly, all the air-exposed sides of the loaf bled, but I just cut the loaf and it's perfect inside. I guess now that it's cut, the line will probably bleed on the cut bars too...

 

[Lion Of Judah]

once you cut , what you see is what you get , it will not bleed again in the center

 

[pamielynn]

did it bleed - or did it drag when you cut it?

 

[seven]

yes, often the air exposed sides will bleed. place your soap on its side and cut that way so the pencil line stays intact.

 

[grayceworks]

No, it bled. The cut sides WERE perfect, as I had cut on its side. No smudges, yay! But yeah, all the way around the outside of the loaf before I cut, and a day after cutting the one slice the other day, all those lines bled. And now that I've cut the rest of the bars, while they were perfect 4hrs ago, now they are fuzzy at the edges of the line.

 

[Obsidian]

It took a few days for my bars to stop bleeding. They slowly went from a thin line to 1/8 inch+ line

 

[seven]

if you are after a really thin pencil line, you are better off using micas. cocoa powder is notorious for bleeding.

 

[grayceworks]

The above one is shortly after cutting.

I cant attach more than one image using this app on android. I'll put the next one in the next post.

 

[grayceworks]

This is it now.

 

[grayceworks]

Ok, so stick with micas. Got it. What about charcoal?

 

[SoapMakingTommy]

I think most natural colors will bleed, there really isnt anything to stop it from not bleeding.

Wikipedia says this about mica's: "" ground mica is used as a pigment extender that also facilitates suspension, reduces chalking, prevents shrinking and shearing of the paint film, increases resistance of the paint film to water penetration and weathering, and brightens the tone of colored pigments. Mica also promotes paint adhesion in aqueous and oleoresinous formulations""

This needs more research tho.