coloring soap

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honor435

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I swear i saw someone on a tutorial for hp using food coloring, does that work? i though it would get color on your skin?
 
yeah, food colouring works just fine. In fact I would say it is rather weak as far as colouring goes. But, think about it this way, if you can eat it safely you can sure bet it's not going to hurt you topically. As far as bleeding goes, my opinion, and my opinion only is, the concentrations we use are minimal compared to cooking and I have yet to see bleeding.
 
honor,
I have used food coloring both liquid and gel. It does not get on your hands as you use the soap. I have also used some candle and soap coloring. All see to work well.

Crayons work well, but as it has been pointed out, you may not want to sell soap colored with crayons. But for home or gift use old crayons are great.
 
food coloring is not always pH stable. so you don't necessarily get what you expect.
 
knicelyr said:
honor,
I have used food coloring both liquid and gel. It does not get on your hands as you use the soap. I have also used some candle and soap coloring. All see to work well.

Crayons work well, but as it has been pointed out, you may not want to sell soap colored with crayons. But for home or gift use old crayons are great.
i thought candle color wasnt safe for soap?
 
It is in M&P soap that food colouring can bleed onto things....trust me, I know :wink: :wink:

Candle colouring can be skin safe too, depends on the product....you just have to check out what the supplier says regarding it.

Tanya :)
 
topcat said:
It is in M&P soap that food colouring can bleed onto things....trust me, I know :wink: :wink:

Candle colouring can be skin safe too, depends on the product....you just have to check out what the supplier says regarding it.

Tanya :)
\
i used candle coloring once and it turned my soap almost black(color was green) and it smelled bad, then i read not safe for skincare products!
 
absolutely make no assumption of safety with candle dyes. hell, I wouldn't go that way for anything.

buy soap dyes. use them.
 
check the food colour you have and plug the INCI Number or whatever other weird looking number is on the ingredient list into Wikipedia. (on the back of food dyes you usually get something like Tartazine for yellow or some E Number, I think Yellow was E102)

There it will give you a cosmetic colour equivalent if it is skin safe (a CI number)

Most food colours are exactly the same as what shops sell as Water Based Soap Dye.

As to strength - it depends on what you use. The liquids are less concentrated than the soap dyes and also contain preservatives which may or may not be skin safe, although the small amounts used would be fine if you are not selling the soap. The powders are very concentrated and a little goes a looooong way.

The issues with food dye are the same as with water based soap colours, some are safe in CP, HP and MP, some will fade in sunlight and some will morph into something else in CP soap. HP is more forgiving.

Blue Food dye is not worth the hassle (FD&C Food Blue #1). It fades in MP under sunlight and morphs into pink in CP soap. I haven't tested FD&C Food Blue #2 yet, but will do on Tuesday.

Red worked fine for me in HP soap, haven't tried it in CP yet. I had no chance testing Yellow yet.
 
madpiano said:
The issues with food dye are the same as with water based soap colours, some are safe in CP, HP and MP, some will fade in sunlight and some will morph into something else in CP soap. HP is more forgiving.
I assume by "safe" you mean to say that beyond being approved by use in cosmetics, some are STABLE in different types of soap. HP is more "forgiving" because while it still has quite an alkaline pH, it has less of a caustic nature than CP soap batter.
 
carebear said:
madpiano said:
The issues with food dye are the same as with water based soap colours, some are safe in CP, HP and MP, some will fade in sunlight and some will morph into something else in CP soap. HP is more forgiving.
I assume by "safe" you mean to say that beyond being approved by use in cosmetics, some are STABLE in different types of soap. HP is more "forgiving" because while it still has quite an alkaline pH, it has less of a caustic nature than CP soap batter.

yes carebear - you said it much better than me. I have not yet come across a food colour that is not cosmetically approved, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there, it's best to check back in Wikipedia for the CI number, just to make sure.

But then there are plenty of colourants that are not stable in CP soap and no-one blinks an eyelid. And are all the "natural" colourants actually approved for cosmetics ? Like Red Wine, Paprika etc ?
 
good question and one I don't know the answer to. I think it depends on for what purpose they are supposedly being added - but still I don't know. :?:
 
Oooooooohhhhhhhh, red wine in soap, cool, I never would have thought of that, I bet you could get a cheap Chianti or Valpollacela and reduce it down to saturate it's colour.
Next stop booze shop.
 

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