RealEyez's bath salt dilemma reminded me of my soap question.  I've been making soap for a few years now.  Turns out wonderful, especially since I use lots of calendula, and nice scent to it.  But..how on earth do you make it with pretty colors???  I think the lye is bleaching out any colors I want to use.  The cinnamon was a pretty beige, lasted only a couple of days.  Once, I put a whole bunch of anthemis flowers in the mixture.  It was dark brown at first, and I thought, oh good, it will bleach to a pretty yellow.  No...it bleached to another white.  All my soap is pure white.  Lathers very nice, very gentle, but no color.  Is there a natural way to put color in my soap??

If you use Lye... chances are no colour will take to it at all.  That's why most people now use Glycerin, since it takes colour and scents wonderfully.  Lye also has the potential to be too strong for most skin types, and isn't recommended, but if you've been using it for years there's no reason to switch, unless you really want colours.

I am a soap maker too.  I make lye soap and have no problem retaining color.  I use natural pigments to color it.  But, now that I think of it even when I have used cinnamon or other spices to color it retained.  Are you adding the ingredients while heating or are you adding them while beating?

If you are adding the ingredients while heating up it may be what is doing it.  I always add after adding the oil to the lye/water mix.  Once the saponification starts I add my essential oils and pigments or spices.

I use only olive oil so maybe the castille process is different?

Nat

The cinnamon that was added to the soap was added when I added the essential oils, right before I poured it into the molds.  It was very pretty for about a week.  By the time a month went by, it was white.  The anthemis petals were used to color the water that the lye was added to, but then I added more petals before the soap was poured.  The soap was a dark brown when it was poured, and a pretty yellow when it hardened, and then white within the week.  I have a couple of recipes I use, one with shortening, coconut, calendula oil, and the other is olive,coconut, sunflower,calendula oil.  
I've did a little bit of reading on glycerin.  Looked interesting.  And since I like to make my own things, and love to experiment, it would make a nice winter project.  Making my own glycerin.  

Its funny, here I like nice white or clear soaps while you're tyring to add colours to yours!  I've only made glycerin, but would like to experiment with lye, but do not have a receipe that I turst.  I'm worried that it will be too harsh.  When I moved, a box of bathroom stuff got left in the sun for a few days........ lets just say I need to make more soap now.  Humm, now that I think about it, I don't know where my receipies and essential oils are.

You can use color with lye sweetie. My mom makes bar soap and I wish I remember what type of dye she uses. Maybe its liquid? Or powder? I don't really remember. Lye just helps it bond but after 6 weeks of curing it isn't there. I have really sensitive skin during the winter and it doesn't bother me and my brother's is far worse. But you have to let it sit, covered and undisturbed. My mom uses plastic drawers as mold pans, pours them in, and covers them with a series of sheets and blankets. She'll usually make a few batches at once. I would research the dyes that people use. Are you adding enough dye though? Sometimes it takes a lot for the color to set in.

Just a thought.

~Amberwood

There are dyes that you can buy to use in soap, but I like to stay as natural as I can.  I usually color my water, i.e. simmer the flowers that give the color, and then use that water to mix the lye with.  I think next time I might try tumeric and or paprika that gets added just before the soap is poured.  In another few weeks will be time to start a few more batches of soap for the holidays.    

I did it!  I have pretty brown soap.  I used a lot of clove and cinnamon powder and the color seems to be holding pretty good.  It's a light brown, and softer than usual but still usuable and smells very nice.  I used balsam, cedar, cinnamon, cloves, anything to do with the holidays.  I couldn't find any recipes for a christmas soap, but that's ok.  I like to experiment, and I'm getting good feedback so far.  
           

hmmm Marigold any chance of posting your "Christmas Soap" recipe before next year? I will bet there are plenty of soapmakers here who would like to try it!


I haven't done any soapmaking yet, but I am thinking of trying it soon....

I didn't write things down as I made it but I'll do the best I can.
First, I started with this basic recipe.
11 oz water (preferably distilled, but I use tap water)
4 oz caustic soda (lye)  the water and soda mix should be in a plastic bucket or aluminum pot and cooled to 100deg.

8 oz sunflower oil
8 oz olive oil
7 oz coconut oil   The oil mix will have to be heated to 100 deg.

Once both mixtures are both 100deg, combine both together, and stir until tracing occurs.  The point where a spoon drizzled on top will leave a mark.  This usually takes about 5min.  

At this time, I put in about 1tbsp (maybe a little bit more) each of cinnamon and clove powder.  This gave the brown color.  For essential oils, I used a 4ml bottle of balsam fir, 1/2 bottle each of cedar, cinnamon, and cloves, and orange.  
I would definitely use the balsam fir, but I think I really stirred and sniffed to put in the rest of the essential oils until I got the scent that I wanted.  It smelled kind of trashy when I poured the soap into (plastic) molds, but maybe because I had a scent overload, but it all came together once the soap hardened.  It still looks very nice, and people like the smell of the soap.  It's a bit softer than commercial soap but it's either from all the powder I put in, or because I put in a lot of essential oils.  Still works nice though.
Hope this helps.