Oil infusion question

[atiz]

Another newbie question. (I tried to find a discussion of it on the forum but could only find some scattered remarks.)

I made my first oil infusion last night for a soleseife soap, with annatto seeds. It turned out a quite nice yellow; in fact, *very* yellow. Which made me think I like oil infusions a lot. (Now I have like 5 little cans of oil with various herbs in them on the shelf.)

But as I was trying to clean off the spilled infused oil from my white countertop this morning (note 1: I did not cover the part of the counter where I was dealing with the oils. What could *possibly* go wrong?? Note 2: Vinegar and baking soda can work wonders.), I started to think about overdose. What percentage of oils do people usually infuse, and how strongly?
My only aim with the infusion is color (so, not concerned with any beneficial properties of herbs etc.), but also, I really don't want my finished soap to stain. I mean, obviously a very yellow soap looks great, but if my hands (and towels) will get yellow after washing with them, then I might need to reconsider.

Also, does it make a difference *which* oil you infuse? Do the colors turn out different if e.g. you infuse olive oil or avocado oil (in the same percentage) for the same soap?
Maybe I'll have to do some experimenting, but would be grateful for anyone else's experience if they don't mind sharing it.

 

[DeeAnna]

Answering in no particular order ....

I use an oil for infusions that has a decently long shelf life, because I don't know how long I'll have that infused oil around. I also want it to be an oil that's reasonably inexpensive and also one I'd normally use in soap. High oleic sunflower fits the bill very well for me, as does any other high oleic (HO) oil like HO safflower and HO canola. Olive is a classic, but I don't use olive -- just personal preference. Avocado can contribute its own color, so don't use it in infusions for that reason and also because it's expensive for me.

Since I'm a hobby soaper, I don't keep a lot of infused oil around, just to keep my ingredients reasonaly fresh. Annatto is easy to infuse, so it's no great hardship to make small batches from time to time. I'm not very precise about infusions like this -- I put maybe a couple of tablespoons of annatto seeds in a cup of oil. That gives me enough deeply infused oil for coloring swirls in several batches of soap. I normally only use a tablespoon or two in a batch, depending on the color scheme.

For the deep yellow swirls in the soap below, I added enough annatto infused oil until the color looked right. Maybe a couple of soup spoons in 200-250 mL (3/4 to 1 cup of batter.) In the body of the soap, I used probably about the same amount of annatto infused oil along with some titanium dioxide to make a pastel yellow.

 

[atiz]

Answering in no particular order ....

I use an oil for infusions that has a decently long shelf life, because I don't know how long I'll have that infused oil around. I also want it to be an oil that's reasonably inexpensive and also one I'd normally use in soap. High oleic sunflower fits the bill very well for me, as does any other high oleic (HO) oil like HO safflower and HO canola. Olive is a classic, but I don't use olive -- just personal preference. Avocado can contribute its own color, so don't use it in infusions for that reason and also because it's expensive for me.

Since I'm a hobby soaper, I don't keep a lot of infused oil around, just to keep my ingredients reasonaly fresh. Annatto is easy to infuse, so it's no great hardship to make small batches from time to time. I'm not very precise about infusions like this -- I put maybe a couple of tablespoons of annatto seeds in a cup of oil. That gives me enough deeply infused oil for coloring swirls in several batches of soap. I normally only use a tablespoon or two in a batch, depending on the color scheme.

For the deep yellow swirls in the soap below, I added enough annatto infused oil until the color looked right. Maybe a couple of soup spoons in 200-250 mL (3/4 to 1 cup of batter.) In the body of the soap, I used probably about the same amount of annatto infused oil along with some titanium dioxide to make a pastel yellow.

Wow, that's beautiful! I love the pastel yellow.
But I have not even thought about making swirls with infusion. Do you divide your lye water and saponify the different colored batches separately? That seems to involve a lot of extra math to figure out!

 

[DeeAnna]

Nope. I made the basic soap batter per my recipe and then poured small portions of batter into separate cups. I added color to each cup and the remaining larger portion still in my soap pot. The yellow shades are the annatto infused oil. The bluish-greenish portions are oxides mixed into glycerin.

You can make a good argument that I should have accounted for the extra oil in the yellow portions, and I'd agree you'd be technically correct. I soap with a fairly low superfat (3% usually), however, so my soap can tolerate a bit of extra superfat in the name of pretty colors.

I've learned my soap turns out okay as long as I keep the unaccounted-for oil to a reasonably low amount in total. If I added infused oil to all of the different portions or if I used a lot of infused oil in any given portion, I'd need to reconsider this. Or if I felt the need to use a high % of superfat. But for this particular soap design, my less-than-precise method works tolerably well.

 

[atiz]

Nope. I made the basic soap batter per my recipe and then poured small portions of batter into separate cups. I added color to each cup and the remaining larger portion still in my soap pot. The yellow shades are the annatto infused oil. The bluish-greenish portions are oxides mixed into glycerin.

You can make a good argument that I should have accounted for the extra oil in the yellow portions, and I'd agree you'd be technically correct. I soap with a fairly low superfat (3% usually), however, so my soap can tolerate a bit of extra superfat in the name of pretty colors.

I've learned my soap turns out okay as long as I keep the unaccounted-for oil to a reasonably low amount in total. If I added infused oil to all of the different portions or if I used a lot of infused oil in any given portion, I'd need to reconsider this. Or if I felt the need to use a high % of superfat. But for this particular soap design, my less-than-precise method works tolerably well.

Ah, I see. Makes perfect sense, thank you for the great explanation!

 

[SaltedFig]

Another newbie question. (I tried to find a discussion of it on the forum but could only find some scattered remarks.)

I made my first oil infusion last night for a soleseife soap, with annatto seeds. It turned out a quite nice yellow; in fact, *very* yellow. Which made me think I like oil infusions a lot. (Now I have like 5 little cans of oil with various herbs in them on the shelf.)

But as I was trying to clean off the spilled infused oil from my white countertop this morning (note 1: I did not cover the part of the counter where I was dealing with the oils. What could *possibly* go wrong?? Note 2: Vinegar and baking soda can work wonders.), I started to think about overdose. What percentage of oils do people usually infuse, and how strongly?
My only aim with the infusion is color (so, not concerned with any beneficial properties of herbs etc.), but also, I really don't want my finished soap to stain. I mean, obviously a very yellow soap looks great, but if my hands (and towels) will get yellow after washing with them, then I might need to reconsider.

Also, does it make a difference *which* oil you infuse? Do the colors turn out different if e.g. you infuse olive oil or avocado oil (in the same percentage) for the same soap?
Maybe I'll have to do some experimenting, but would be grateful for anyone else's experience if they don't mind sharing it.

I keep infusions going, topping up the oil and the powder as required.
I do use olive oil for most (I have access to some amazing oils where I am), but the turnover is pretty high (and the infusion can be refrigerated).

Any that are getting a bit full, I strain it into a new bottle and add more of whatever powder or herb I'm using (I mostly grow, dry and powder my own, but some are purchased).

An infusion to be used in a leave on product can be overpowering, but unlikely to be too much trouble if you are infusing to color soap.

PS. Added information - I was describing infusing at the maximum possible strength, by adding fresh colorant to already colored oils to layer-up the intensity, which is why I both keep mine going and strain it from time to time.
The advantage for me is that I have it ready to use at all times (and some colours do well with a longer extraction), and the amount tends to even out (because I am not making small amounts multiple times, but making the strongest version I have and using a smaller amount).

 

[Iluminameluna]

@atiz You asked the exact question I was going to ask. Thank you!! And @DeeAnna Your answer was GREAT!
I was trying to figure out how to use my color infused oils (mostly a veg oil that's 90% palm, 10% soy) to start attempting separate colors in my soaps and couldn't quite wrap my head around having to try to separate lye amounts for each oil. Argh! Your way of just adding enough color-infused oils to create shading makes perfect sense.
Now to go make these soaps ...