Making brown soap look pretty?

[nsmar4211]

I've been finding that several of the scents I like are discolorers. I'm making soap as Christmas gifts (am in the experiment stage) and I'd like them to be prettyish for the ladies on the list (and a few of the gents LOL).

What do you guys do with the discoloring soaps besides leaving them? Some of the scents don't "jibe" with the colors (I'm looking at you papaya) and my lab color tests (azure and seafoam) have resulted in weirdness so far. My skills are not quite advanced enough to do some of the fancy stuff I see...

I do have some "pretty" molds (melt and pour from the craft store and a few silicon from online), and I have a few stamps. If you were getting handmade soap as a gift...would you care it was brown? Espically if it was say a seashell shape or something?

I was considering doing some embeds, making the embedded shape (I have hearts and some candy mold guitars) in white. But I'm concerned the discoloring will affect the embeds also?

 

[not_ally]

Hm, just wanted to put in an note on the Labcolors (I assume from BB). Are you sure they are all for CP? There are separate ones for CP and MP (ie; high PH/lower PH) I am always careful to check before I pay to make sure I haven't gotten the wrong type. I also label/segregate them like the rest of my colorants so I don't accidentally use one that I know in advance will morph, although sometimes it is inevitable b/c you *don't* know in advance.

I have several of them and I think they have all been fine w/r/t morphing. They *do* bleed, but I just use them in soaps where that is OK, and I like them b/c they are super easy to use and v. cost effective.

 

[nsmar4211]

They were both high ph... the colors themselves are fine when they work.. but I had one batch with seafoam that did NOT like the FO I used. Another batch I had a heck of a time blending evenly before the batter got too thick (I was adding to the lye/oil mix before stick blending). Just weirdness.... Might be me though.

Do they "cover up" the discolor? Say I use green in a known tan discolor, I get muted green right? That I could live with....been working on getting the FO and recipe to co-operate, then coloring

 

[green soap]

A stamp can also make a brown soap look nicer. I have seen some folks use golden or copper colored mica with the stamp, that would look super nice with brown.

 

[SunWolf]

With FO's that contain a lot of vanilla and get very dark, I like to pour off about 1/3 of my batter before adding my FO. I leave that 1/3 portion unscented and uncolored and put the entire amount of FO into the main 2/3 portion of batter. I pour the main scented portion into the mold, then do a drop swirl with the unscented batter.

If you have a slow moving batter, you can do a 3 tone swirl by dividing the 2/3 portion in half, after you add the FO, and add some Titanium Dioxide to one of those portions. You'll end up with soap that is swirls of brown, tan and white.

Pay attention to where you pour which batter, because at first you won't see much difference in the colors and it can be difficult to know where to swirl (ask me how I know:roll. But as the scented portion(s) darken(s), the unscented portion(s) remains white(tan), and your swirls are revealed like magic. Or add a contrasting color to the unscented portion instead of leaving it white.

 

[not_ally]

That sounds really good, SW, I am going to try that w/my next brown batch.

ETA: I know I've read about this somewhere before, but thought I'd get your thought - does the FO sort of migrate into the unscented parts? Ie; the colored parts don't end up being too strongly scented/skin irritants b/c of the FO concentration? I think that is right, just wanted to check with you.

 

[SunWolf]

I don't know about the FO migrating, it always works out just fine and seems stable over time. No one has ever commented about sensitivity to the FO from being concentrated.

 

[not_ally]

Do they "cover up" the discolor? Say I use green in a known tan discolor, I get muted green right? [/QUOTE]

Not sure about this, ie; I am not good at guaging/guessing on color mixes, so if something discolors half way through I just kind of curse, give up and consign it to the confetti heap when it's done. Eg, I've never said "I know if I use this colorant w/this FO it is going to morph to tan, so I'll add some green in advance to make it a muted green when it cures." Is that what you meant?

I am pretty careful to organize my colorants to do as much as I can to avoid discoloration - I label them "all", "CPO" and "MPO" and then segregate them as soon as I get them so I don't grab the wrong one by mistake. Then organize them by color so that if, eg, I am making CP, change my mind on colors and want to grab a blue quickly I can look at the "all" and "CPO" color trays, riffle through the blues, and find the ones which will work before my batter seizes up

If something morphs and I am not expecting it, I highlight the label - or any other spot I can see easily - in red so that I know there might be an issue. There are not that many of those, you sort of come to remember them.

 

[nsmar4211]

Yea, that's exactly what I meant . I may have to try another experiement...good thing I do small batches and have the 12 cavity mold!