Natural coloring agents

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Elyse Johnson

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Hello everyone,
New to soap making here. What are some natural soap coloring agents and where does everyone buy them?
 
Here is a previous post I put up, you can search the forum for answers and lots of threads come up. I typed in Natural colourants and lots popped up.
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/natural-colourants.72586/

As far as buying them, you can buy turmeric, poppy seeds, paprika from the supermarket. Chickweed, nettle from the garden, verge or bush. Clays from soap suppliers, you can look for those in the shopping recs or google soap suppliers in your area or country.
 
Before I found this forum I Googled a lot. There's a lot of info, but the info on here beats that coz there's a lot of updates regarding fading and what not. Still, it's a starting point. YouTube also has some vids of people using natural colorants... I have some bookmarks I've shared before but it'll take me time to track em down right now lol
 
You can also try searching for the colorants shown in the picture at the link Relle posted. For example, annatto, paprika, turmeric, Spirulina, matcha tea. Some dye making plants that work in soap, such as indigo, madder, alkanet, and woad, can be a bit trickier to use. The “coloring soap naturally” series at modern soapmaking is pretty helpful for getting started:
https://www.modernsoapmaking.com/tag/coloring-soap-naturally-series/

You’re in the US where many of the major soap making suppliers sell botanical ingredients. Take a look at Brambleberry, Nuture, Mad Micas, etc. Then I agree with Dawn that you should look for recent threads here to get a sense of what’s actually working or not in terms of methods. I will also offer up one caution. Adding a lot of powdered herbs or spices is one way to get color, assuming what you add doesn’t turn brown, but it may result in a scratchy soap. For that reason, many use oils that have been infused with the color of the herb, tea or spice for part of the base oils in the recipe.

Have fun!
 

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