DIY
Natural Soap Colourants
Natural Soap Colorants
Natural soap colourants are a fantastic way to create beautiful, colourful soaps without synthetic dyes. These natural ingredients add colour and often offer additional skin benefits. Here’s an in-depth look at various natural colourants you can use in your soap-making process.
Types of Natural Soap Colorants
- Spices:
- Turmeric: Known for its vivid yellow to orange colour, turmeric also has anti-inflammatory properties, which make it beneficial for the skin.
- Paprika: This spice is orange and can be used for its colour and its mild exfoliating properties.
- Curry Powder: This mixture of spices gives the soap a deep yellow to orange colour. It includes curry leaves, coriander, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, and chilli peppers.
- Herbs and Flowers:
- Nettle Leaf: This herb imparts a light to dark green colour and has anti-inflammatory and anti-fungal properties, making it an excellent choice for soothing skin.
- Calendula Petals: are recognized for their anti-inflammatory and healing properties. When added to soap, they turn yellow to golden-orange.
- Chamomile: Chamomile flowers provide a beige to yellow colour and are excellent for calming irritated skin.
- Rose Petal Powder: Adds shades of pink to red and is high in vitamin C and antioxidants, offering beauty and benefits to your soap.
- Clays:
- French Green Clay: Offers a soft green colour and is well-known for its deep detoxification properties.
- French Pink Clay: Provides a range of colours from soft pink to brick red and helps improve skin elasticity.
- Cambrian Blue Clay: Gives shades of blue and effectively detoxifies the skin.
- Fuller’s Earth Clay: This clay adds a light brown colour and is excellent for reducing oiliness on the skin.
- Roots and Powders:
- Madder Root: Offers a spectrum from pink to burgundy. It can be used by infusing in oils or added directly to the lye solution.
- Alkanet Root: Known for producing colours from dark plum purple to pale pinks, best used by infusing in oils.
- Annatto Seeds: These seeds can produce a range of colours from pale yellow to deep orange, depending on the concentration and method used.
- Activated Charcoal: Ideal for creating a black colour in soap, activated charcoal also helps with oily skin.
- Other Natural Ingredients:
- Honey: Adding honey to your lye solution can give it a natural golden brown colour. The heat from the lye solution caramelizes the honey, giving the soap a rich fudge brown tint and a delightful aroma.
- Cocoa Powder: Provides a brown colour and serves as a natural exfoliant.
- Beet Root: While beetroot can yield warm to dull brown colours, it does not colour CP/HP soap red. It is best used in its powdered form, juice, or infused in oils.
Tips for Using Natural Colorants
- Infusion: Using herbs and flowers in oils is a great way to incorporate colour and beneficial properties into your soap. This method helps achieve a more even distribution of colour.
- Adding at Trace: Many colourants can be added at the trace stage to ensure vibrant and consistent colours.
- Gel Phase: Insulating your soap to go through the gel phase can help make the colours more vibrant and stable.
Storage and Preservation
Natural colours tend to fade over time. To prevent this, store your soap in a dry, calm, and well-ventilated place away from direct sunlight. This helps maintain the vibrancy of the colours for a more extended period.
Experimentation
Every natural colourant behaves differently in soap, so it’s essential to experiment with small batches to determine the best technique and amount to achieve your desired colour. Keep detailed notes of your experiments to replicate successful batches and adjust as needed.
Conclusion
Using natural soap colourants in soap making is a rewarding and creative process. You can achieve a wide range of beautiful, natural colours in your handmade soaps with some experimentation and patience. Enjoy the process, and happy soaping!
i was wondering what the ratio of these were like tablespoon per pound?? you’re soaps are so beautiful by the way!!
Hi Alex, Thank you very much for the message. There are different ratios with each clay, spice or powder. Which colourants would you like to know about?
What color can I use to ge purple. Don’t have lavender flowers
Hi Mary, many thanks for the message. Would suggest using the Alkanet root or Growwell root if you’re looking for a natural purple in a cold processed soap. Hope that helps a bit))
Hi Zuzana! I need to know if my Beet Powder would work and what would the shelf life be when adding a vegetable based colorant? Thank you.
Hi Leslie, many thanks for your message. The beet root powder wouldn’t work in the cp soap, it fades almost completely in the cold process soap.
Determining the shelf life requires finding the shelf life of each ingredient in the recipe or in the product if you wish. The shelf life of the product becomes the same as the ingredient with the shortest shelf life? Hope I helped a bit. Cheers, Zuzana
Hi, how much madder root per pound please or per kg?
Hi Debbie, thanks for your message. I would use 10g of madder root powder per 1000g of oils 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing these beautiful and natural colorants. It has been so frustrating for me personally to find natural colorants and their specific recipe that produce such beautifully colored CP soaps. Can’t wait to try them out! Would you mind sharing more of your ratios on the Alkanet, French Pink Clay, Paprika, Madder Root, Carrot and Annato? Greedy. I know. But so wonderful and inspiring. Ordering more base oils pronto!
Hello Catherine, appreciate your comment 🙂 I’m more than happy to share the ratios with you.
Alkanet Oil Infusion: I would use 170 grams of this infusion per 1700grams of all oils; French Pink Clay: 35grams of this powder per 1700grams of oils; Paprika Oil Infusion: 209grams per 1700grams of oils; Madder Root Powder: 17grams per 1700 grams of oils; Carrot Juice: 100% of water is replaced by freshly squeezed carrots; Annatto Oil Infusion: 140 grams per 1700 grams of all oils. Hope you find it helpful and If any more questions, I’m here 🙂 Happy Soaping!
thakns.thanks.thanks…..
Can these colorants be used in facial creams as well?
Your soaps are absolutely gorgeous.
May I ask for ratios on the Curry Powder please? Im assuming its a red version. It turns out such a neat color, and I never would have thought to use curry in soap.
Thank you so much in advance.
Hi Crystal, many thanks for stopping by. The curry ratio as follows: 25g of mild yellow curry powder to 1600g of oils))) Please let me know how it went)). All the best.Zuzana
You’re the best…Im just so intrigued for some reason about this…thank you so much. I will be placing an order soon…I must try some of your soaps
Hello! Your soaps are beautiful!! May I ask… are these colors also to use in melt and pour soaps? How much can I use??
I will make these soaps thank you
I love Three Hills! I have bought every shampoo bar going and even made my own but the Three Hills one is really brilliant! My sister also bought me some of the soaps and lip balm and I love them. I’ll be back for more!