Searching for the soap color has my head spinning!!

[user 22966]

Greetings soapers!

I am new to this group and am impressed with the amount of advice, resources, ideas, and beautiful soap that I see posted. My specific question is in regard to coloring. I have spent literally hours reading about the subject of coloring soap on this forum; specifically cold pressed soap.
First, here is my recipe: This is a simple soap which I yield about 20 bars in the traditional soap molds (See attached pic((the soap has 3 more weeks to go))
I make one batch of lemon, peppermint, and lavender (The pic only shows the lemon)
20 oz. coconut oil
20 oz. olive oil
13 oz. lard or shortening
18 oz. fresh goat’s milk 7
1 OZ TOTAL
9 oz. lye
PEPPERMINT light 0.80 medium 1.20 strong 1.60
LEMON light 0.68 medium 1.02 strong 1.36 LAVENDER light .066 medium 0.93 strong 1.32
I do not sell these soaps but make them for personal use and gift them. I have been making soap for a few years and initially only made lavender but have branched out to peppermint and lemon. What I would like to do is color lightly each of my soap flavors with a yellow for lemon a purple for lavender and green for peppermint; and use as chemical free coloring as possible. Also I want each of the soap flavors to only have a HINT of color; if anything just for identification. AND THAT SEARCH FOR ‘THE’ COLOR HAS GOTTEN MY HEAD SPINNING!! So as not to be tedious I will not share my entire findings regarding my search for coloring of soap but I will encapsulate what I believe to be the bottom line:
Clays: blah colors and the soap comes out gritty feeling.
Naturals (herbs and such): Hit or miss and ones soap recipe can dramatically affect the resulting color
Mica, oxides: NOT even close to chemical free and I do not need my soap bars ending up looking like Lego block colors.
And then there is the business of ‘oil infusion’ what that is. And how and why would I do that? And would it be even necessary for the faint look of color I am attempting to achieve?

Any advice, suggestions, tips, do’s, don’ts regarding my quest for a natural colorant to lightly color my soaps is greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!

 

[Susie]

The intensity of color from mica's is dependent on both the color choice and the amount you use. Not all micas look like "Lego's". You choose how much to use. If you want reliable colorants in the purple or green families, you need to use something that you would consider a "chemical". You can either use Beta Carotene or infuse paprika into olive oil for yellow.

Beta Carotene-clip the end off the caplet and squeeze into the oils of your batch. Use as many as you like for the color. I would probably use 1 or 2 for that size batch.

To infuse olive oil with paprika, I do this:

Take 6-8 oz of olive oil, put into jar that has a lid.
Add 1 oz paprika (not hot or smoked, just regular paprika).
Stir well.
Place the jar into a pan that is deep enough to have the water come 3/4 of the way up the jar. Be sure to put a dish cloth or something between the jar and the pan to keep the jar from bouncing on the bottom of the pan.
Put water in the pan to about 3/4 the height of the jar.
Bring to light boil, reduce to simmer.
Simmer about 30 minutes.
Allow to cool.
Without stirring or shaking the jar, pour off the colored oil. The paprika will remain in the bottom of the jar.

Substitute as much colored oil for uncolored oil as you want for that batch.

 

[Saranac]

I use oxides and ultramarine. Granted, those used in soaps are created in labs, but then again, NaOH is too. The resulting colors are very earthy and nothing like a Lego.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

It's a very good point - you put far more lab-made lye (identical to naturally occurring NaOH just without the mud) than colourant, so a lab-made colour which is just a pure form of a naturally occurring oxide - is that really so bad?

If you are looking for a lighter shade, it would be better to have a consistent colour, so infusions and so on might be more hit and miss in what comes out as opposed to a powder

 

[Millie]

I'm confused by your fragrance numbers - is that oz per your batch size or oz ppo? Either way those numbers look off to me. I'm assuming those are essential oils?

 

[SunRiseArts]

:bunny: I think they are lovely, and you got some great advice!