Oil Infusion. How much to add to cp soap?

[mikvahnrose]

I made a big jug of annatto infused olive oil. Boy is it so pretty!! I can't wait to try other natural dyes. But I have questions about how much to use. Do I substitute this for the entire amount of olive oil in a recipe? Or do you just use tsp/tbs ppo?

Lastly, do you discount the amount of infusion used to the amount of olive oil in a recipe if using more than one color? Like subtract 5 grams of regular olive oil in leu of the 5 grams annatto/olive infusion?

 

[Susie]

You substitute however much you need to get the color you want. Some colors only need a little, some need more. I normally melt my other oils, then add my colored oil and stir while it is on the scale. When I get to the color I want, I add the remainder of the OO the recipe needs in regular OO.

Yes, you substitute out gram for gram in whatever oil you used for the infusion.

 

[mommycarlson]

Susie, I have a question about infused oils. I have made some alkanet, annatto, and madder root infused oils recently. The annatto made my soap a light orange and it's pretty. Have not tried the madder yet, but yesterday I used alkanet infused oil in a recipe. It is the weirdest shade of gray/green and I had hoped for purple.
So my question is, I watched a video of a lady making an alkanet infused hombre soap [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PfKLy0jOYI[/ame]
she leaves the soap batter white and separates it out and then adds the infused oil to color each layer. I wondered how she does this? How do you account for that oil in your soap? Is there a way to add the infused oil up to a certain amount without affecting the soap? I would love to do this but I do not know enough (yet, still learning) to know if and how I can do this. I would love to have advice! Thank you!
Beth

 

[Susie]

I have never worked with alkanet, so I am no help on the color. However, I can help with the layering.

What you do is mix all the oils except the one that is colored. Then you mix just to emulsion. Then you carefully weigh out whatever fraction of the whole you want in the appropriate number of cups, in the case above, six. (This means that you have to weigh each container before hand, and have those numbers available for when you add the batter, as well as each oil.)

Then, in each cup, you add the amount of colored oil with an amount of uncolored oil to total the 1/6 amount of oil for each section. Then you stickblend the oils in. You need a thicker trace to avoid pouring the newer layers through the older ones.

Let me use actual numbers to try to illustrate this better:

Layer 1 (darkest/bottom)-1/6th the total amount of colored oil (calling it 1 part for simplicity). No uncolored oil.
Layer 2-0.80 parts colored oil to 0.20 parts uncolored oil
Layer 3-0.60:0.40
Layer 4-0.40:0.60
Layer 5-0.20:0.80
Layer 6-100% uncolored oil

 

[Dahila]

I quit alcanet I co not like the greyish violet , people do not like it either... Thanks Susie for the calculation

 

[Susie]

I studied how someone did a layered soap, and asked lots of questions. I did one. I was not impressed with the results, but I learned the calculations.

 

[mommycarlson]

Thank you for the calculations Susie, I just cut my alkanet infused soap and I have to say it is by far the ugliest soap I have ever made! I will find a natural colorant that I really like before I try that hombre pour.

 

[HowieRoll]

For annatto usage, this article by Soap Making Resource might be helpful to read:

http://www.soap-making-resource.com/annatto-seeds-soap-making.html

From personal experience, I've had luck making orange soap (where more infused oil is used) but haven't been able to nail down yellow (where less infused oil is used). There are 2 soaps I made in April of this year, one being a secret feather technique and one being a black and white marble with wisps of yellow, that started off with a beautiful yellow shade. But just last week I noticed the yellow was completely gone in both of them. Completely. It surprised me, as I didn't realize annatto was prone to disappearing like that. I also used annatto infused oils for a teardrop (attempt) soap in May, and the yellow bits are almost gone but the orange is still hanging on.

At any rate, I've switched to using oxides.

PS I wanted to add that I do not know if my fading results are typical with annatto, because there are so many variables involved, including infusion saturation, base oils used, gelling/not gelling, etc. I'm a fairly new soaper and it could just be that I was doing something wrong!