herbal infusions for both colors and scents - recent results

I have been having fun using infused oils in my soaps. I get a lot of the herbs from my garden and infuse the oils after drying the herbs. In other cases I buy the herbs, mainly to use as colorants.

I have used infusions using two different methods. In both cases I used mason jars to hold the herb and oils (I used both pints and quarts) The first time I kept the oils with the herbs in a boiling water bath for a couple of hours. This worked fine. The next time I used a baking stone and set the oven for 200F. This worked very well since I was making some liquid soap using the 200F warm oven method. I kept the infused oils in their jars in the oven for 4-6 hours. This also worked very well and I will piggy back infused oils into the oven when I make more liquid soap.

The concentration of herbs used in the infusions was from 1tbs to 2tbs per cup of oil.

Here is a list of the infusions I tried (I will break this up into a couple of posts):

Cinnamon. I crushed/ground the cinnamon sticks but did not pulverize them. Not much or any color contributions, but the two batches I made with the infused cinnamon oil smell heavenly and the scent seems to last a lot longer. The other advantage is that unlike cinnamon leaf EO, it did not speed trace. I only made a pint, and divided the pint between the two batches, so that means about 1 cup infused oil in a kilogram batch. I will use a little more next time for a stronger scent. I am definitely infusing cinnamon again!

Allspice. Again, crushed but not pulverized. No color contribution, just a slight scent contribution. I used it in a spice soap, it smells similar to cinnamon leaf EO, but very subtle. It was fine, but probably not worth the trouble of infusing allspice again.

Calendula petals. I collected these from my own garden and dried them. Wow! beautiful yellow color and the calendula scent comes trough in the soap. I also use it in fizzy bath bombs. I like this better than in soap, to take better advantage of the skin healing properties, which I am afraid take a loss with the lye. I will surely make calendula infused oil again.

Rosemary. Collected from my garden and dried. This is a favorite and will be repeated! The color contribution is tan/yellow, not very green, but the scent contribution was awesome! I also added rosemary EO and the soap has a lasting rosemary scent. Since rosemary OR is a preservative, this infusion seem worth doing often and using it in small amounts in different soap batches. By the way, the soap can be colored green using a little indigo powder in the lye water (not an infusion).

Marjoram. Negligible color contribution, very nice scent contribution. I used it in a soap where I also added rosemary EO, it smells unusual but wonderful.

Herbal sachet blend. This was an herbal medley from my own garden, containing a blend of: rose petals, lemon verbena, sage flowers, borage flowers and rosemary. OK, so I admit this is not reproducible, but it was wonderful and it made me realize that it is possible to transfer the scent from my roses to my soap. I will make other blends like this again, but maybe just for very special - special occasion soaps.

rose petals. Got the idea from the previous garden blend, no color contribution, a very subtle scent contribution.

Madder root. I used 25% madded infused oil to get the most wonderful dusty pink shade. I have been using it a lot, also in combination with alkanet infusions, so I need to make more! No scent, just color.

Alkanet root. This has a slight odor that does not seem to transfer into the soap, so it is just for color. Wow! First I used 100 grams of infused alkanet in 1000g of oils and it got me an inky dark purple batch of soap. I reduced it to 50g on a second batch to get a medium purple, and smaller amounts for jut a touch of lavender color.

I will add pictures in the next post, as well as any other infusion I might have missed (will look at my notebook).

I forgot one!

Lemon verbena. There is a color contribution, and a subtle lemony scent, not nearly as much as one would expect from the fresh herb though. I used it in a lemon mint blend, and I have to say the lemon verbena scent is so subtle that I will probably not use this in future infusions. I used almost a full quart too (in 1 kg of oils batch) so I was not shy with it.

Thank you so much for doing this, I am at this moment busy with a rosehip infusion in my crock pot (my very first infusion, so I hope I am doing it right). I used olive oil, can't say that I am seeing a color change yet, but that said it definitely has to go a few more hours.

I will look out for your other post as this is one thing that I would like to do also.

kila73 said:

Thank you so much for doing this, I am at this moment busy with a rosehip infusion in my crock pot (my very first infusion, so I hope I am doing it right). I used olive oil, can't say that I am seeing a color change yet, but that said it definitely has to go a few more hours.

I will look out for your other post as this is one thing that I would like to do also.

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This was the other one I forgot!

Rose hips. These were very well dried, and crushed. Not much color contribution, so I added 1 tbs tomato paste when I made the soap and it became a light peachy color. I also added lemon EO and it made a nice looking and nicely scented soap, which I called lemon-rose hips. I did use the whole pint of rose hips infused oil (in 1 kg soap), so I would have expected more of a scent and color contribution from the rose hips themselves though. This one I infused in the boiling water bath for two hours.

so Kila73, if you get better results, please post your technique! if your results are like mine, do not give up on the infusions! they work very well with other herbs.

So let me summarize, infusions tried: cinnamon, allspice, calendula, rosemary, marjoram, herbal garden blend, rose petals, rose hips, madder root, alkanet root, and lemon verbena.

The ones that were wonderful and I intend to do gain:

for scent: cinnamon, rosemary, and maybe marjoram.

for color: alkanet, madder, and calendula. Calendula also has wonderful skin healing properties.

I might do garden blends for special occasion soaps, and rose hips seems to have a lot of customer appeal, so I might give that one another try too.

Some pictures:



So from top left: rosemary-marjoram (used indigo and beta carotene), lavender (alkanet and madder), rose spice (madder), bottom left: mint-eucalyptus (used alkanet and indigo), cinnamon clove (beta carotene), and lemon-mint (lemon verbena infused oils, indigo and alkanet). The latter one can be called 'grey', or as my husband put it ' a manly type of green'.

Some soap balls, using different natural colors (the brown is from dark chocolate):

I love it! The pictures are awesome! I especially love the soap balls. Thanks for doing this experiment and sharing your results.

Beautiful colors! I like the soap balls, too. Thanks for sharing your results.

Thanks for sharing your results!

The soap balls look like yarn!

You are quite the soap/herbal scientist! I love it! Your green soap has captivated me - where do you get your beta carotene? I've been trying to find a natural, more vibrant green for soaping that is DOS-free.

Great job and thank you!!!

I love the Alkanet & Madder combination. It really intensifies the purple. I may very well try that with ratanjot and madder - I'd guess it would come out pretty similarly.

Time to plan another color experiment!

Thanks for sharing these great results !

If possible, please elaborate a bit more on the soap processing method and temperatures. Is it CP, is it gelled ?

What is the ratio of infused oil in your recipe ? Did you infuse the full amount of oils used ?

The leaves/petales are crushed somehow or simply used whole ?

The beta carotene - how do you get it? I've only seen capsules.

Personally, I don't know exactly what that rosemary OR is (except that I have seen the product advertised). Are you sure it can be extracted through infusion ?

Sorry for so many questions. Enthusiasm arouses my curiosity

Thank you all for the nice words. I do not post often, but I have been reading this forum a lot and learning so much. Nice to share some information back!

skyfarms said:

You are quite the soap/herbal scientist! I love it! Your green soap has captivated me - where do you get your beta carotene? I've been trying to find a natural, more vibrant green for soaping that is DOS-free.

Great job and thank you!!!

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You are welcome! The beta carotene is from yellow coconut oil, the one used for pop corn. I am sure you can get it from red palm oil as well, I do not use palm oil, so can't help on the amount. The green soap on the upper left corner in the first picture I got by mixing 50g yellow coconut oil in 1Kg oils, and dissolving 3/16 tsp indigo crystals in the lye water. I should add that my base oils are not 100% white, but rather an oatmeal color, so an even more vibrant green is possible if you use 100% white base oils. Also, I used marjoram infused oil in that soap, so the infusion might have contributed some color. You will have to experiment slightly based on your soap formula, but the quantities above should get you started with some sort of green......as nice as the green I used to get from chlorophyll, and no DOS!

debbism said:

I love the Alkanet & Madder combination. It really intensifies the purple. I may very well try that with ratanjot and madder - I'd guess it would come out pretty similarly.

Time to plan another color experiment!

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From what I have read, ratanjot behaves similarly to alkanet, a little bit goes a long way. Not Madder, you need to use a lot more of it to get a color, but what a nice color! If you experiment, please let us know what you get and take pictures!

i've used both but not together. With ratanjot infusion, I need only 15% weight of oils where I used about 40% madder for a deeper terra cottoa/rose pink. Should I reduce the ratanjot to 10%?

Fragola said:

Thanks for sharing these great results !

If possible, please elaborate a bit more on the soap processing method and temperatures. Is it CP, is it gelled ?

What is the ratio of infused oil in your recipe ? Did you infuse the full amount of oils used ?

The leaves/petales are crushed somehow or simply used whole ?

The beta carotene - how do you get it? I've only seen capsules.

Personally, I don't know exactly what that rosemary OR is (except that I have seen the product advertised). Are you sure it can be extracted through infusion ?

Sorry for so many questions. Enthusiasm arouses my curiosity

Click to expand...

Enthusiasm is good! I will try answering your questions.

I did CP, 30% hard oils and 70% soft oils (I only do HP for liquid soap).

The gel - no gel question is a little harder. Lets say all the soaps in the first picture are gelled. The second picture that shows the soap balls have a combinations with some un-gelled soaps. All the ones in the first picture were soaped at around 100-110F, poured on silicone lined wooden molds, covered with insulating pads and left at room temperature. This gets me an even gel. Sometimes I don't gel, as in honey oatmeal soap, or chocolate soap, some strips of the chocolate soap are shown in one of the balls in the second picture.

Ratio of infused oils. This varies, I substitute from some - to all of my soft oil with infused oil. To get the alkanet purple on the top center in the first picture I only used 50g infused alkanet oil out of 1000g total. For the rose hips soap I did use infused oils as half or more of the total oils, same thing for the calendula, marjoram, and rose petals infusion. If the scent and/or color in your infusion is intense, use less; if subtle, use more!

I used the calendula petals whole, I cut the rosemary to some extent, crushed a lot of the roots for madder, alkanet, and the cinnamon bark. I'd say crush and cut the herbs but do not pulverize, this way you can strain better. Also, if you use any fresh herbs, like I do, make sure they are completely dry before infusing.

I get beta carotene from coconut oil used for pop corn. I get it from amazon.com.

I am not SURE we can extract rosemary OR by infusion, but I would be willing to bet we can. I will look into this some more though.

debbism said:

i've used both but not together. With ratanjot infusion, I need only 15% weight of oils where I used about 40% madder for a deeper terra cottoa/rose pink. Should I reduce the ratanjot to 10%?

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Maybe? To give you a reference, the soap on the top right corner in the first picture had 25% of the total oils as infused madder root. I call that a dusty rose. Was your 40% madder infused oil soap much darker? or deeper? Can you post a picture?

For another point of reference, the purple soap on the top (center) was 10% madder infused oil and 5% alkanet infused oil, using 1-2 tablespoons dried herb per cup of infused oil. Yet another point of reference: if I use no color at all in my soap, the base oil mix gives me an oatmeal color.

I have not worked with ratanjot, not sure how the color intensity or hue compares with alkanet. I will get some next time I am in an Indian market.

Experiment and let us know what happens!

This is my madder root - about 40% infusion

By debbism at 2011-10-24

The purple is close to your alkanet-indigo combo at 15% ratanjot

debbism said:

This is my madder root - about 40% infusion

The purple is close to your alkanet-indigo combo at 15% ratanjot

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Is the darker shade the madder infused one? Brick-russet-maroon would you say? I love the color. I am going to have to grow the thing. I hope it grows in our climate. How did you get the lighter yellow color?

I just stumbled upon this link. Its pictures of different extract, etc in soap. Some of them have really great color. Rhubarb Root powder made a great red color and logwood root powder looked great too!

http://learn2soap.com/?page_id=16

Thanks for the additional details

I get beta carotene from coconut oil used for pop corn.

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A much stronger version can be found in sea buckthorn oil (I use it as a colorant - few teaspoons ppo). Or berries, for that matter, if you have a local source.