Colouring Your Soaps

There are many different options for colouring your soaps, whether you make your soaps using the Cold Process, Hot Process, Remilling or Melt & Pour soapmaking method.

Cold Process Soapmaking

A wide range of natural herbs, spices, clays and commercial grade colourants can be used to colour your Cold Process Soaps.

Herbs & Spices:
When using Herbs & Spices in colouring cold process soaps, the colour of the herb or spice will not necessarily be the colour of your finished soap. Because of the saponification process that takes place during Cold Process soapmaking, herbs and spices change colour, as well as flower petals will tend to brown.

Here are some commonly used botanicals in colouring soaps and the colours they make. Intensity and darkness of colour will depend on the amount added to your batch of soap. Start by adding a tsp. or herbs. or spices to a bit of water and then adding it to your batch of soap at a light trace


Clays:
Clays are a beautiful way to naturally colour your soaps and add to their skin care benefits. A rounded tsp. per 4 lb. batch of soap will generally give the soap a nice level of colour. We add the clay to our early and then continue to whisk or stick blend the soap until it reaches trace so that the clay is fully distributed throughout the soap with no lumps of colour remaining.


Commercial Colourants:
Commercial Colourants such as Ultramarines, Chromium Greens, Lakes and Iron Oxides will give your soaps beautiful colours in varying shades of depending on the amount that you add to your batch. To use these colourants in your soap simply make a concentrate by mixing together 1 tsp. of colourant with 1 tbsp. and then adding the liquid colourant bit by bit when your soap is at a light trace until the desired colour is reached.

Ultramarines:

Pale to Bright Blue

Ultramarine Blue

Pale to Dark Pink

Ultramarine Pink

Pale to Dark Purple

Ultramarine Purple

Chromium Greens:

Seafoam Green

Chromium Hydroxide Green:

Forest Green

Chromium Oxide Green:

FD&C Lakes:

Pale to Bright Yellow

FD&C Lake Yellow #5

Iron Oxiddes:

Create Jet Black Soap

Iron Oxide Black

Hot Process and Remilling

When using the Hot Process or Remilling methods, because the lye has been neutralized, you have more options when it comes to using herbs and botanicals as well as commercial colourants.

Herbs & Botanicals:
Neutralized soap does not discolor herbs or flowers like cold process soap making will, making these the Hot Process and Remilling soapmaking methods a great choice if you are wanting to add things like rose petals, lavender flowers, peppermint leaf etc.

Spices:
Spices can be used as it is in the Cold Process Soapmaking methods but will tend to give the Hot Process or Remilled Soap a more Speckled Colour.

Clays:
Use as you would in the Cold Process Method but these will tend to give you a more speckled looking colour.

Commercial Colourants:

Liquid FD&C Colourants:

FD&C Liquids come in a variety of colours and can be blended together to create additional colours. Simply add, by drops, the liquid FD&C colourant to your batch of soap and mix until the desired colour is reached.

Ultramarines, Chromium Greens, Lakes & Iron Oxides:

These can be added to your Hot Process or Remill Soap base although you will generally achieve a more speckled looking colour.

Soap may be colored before the cooking process if desired.

Melt & Pour Glycerin

Melt & Pour Soap Bases are easily coloured using a variety of commercial colourants, clays and spices.

Melt & Pour Glycerin Dye Pads:
These dye pads are 15 grams of concentrated colour, where you simply need to shave off a small amount and melt it in with your base to achieve shades of colour ranging from pale to dark.

Clays & Spices:
Clays and different Spices can be used to colour your Melt & Pour Soap Bases. Clays can be directly added to the melted soap base and stirred until smooth. Spices can be added by mixing a small amount of spice with a bit of water, and then adding it to your soap base until the desired colour is achieved.

Commercial Colourants:
Ultramarines, Chromium Greens and FD&C Lake powder colourants are another colouring option for Melt & Pour. Simply mix a bit of colour with water and then add to you soap base until the desired colour is achieved.