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When using alkanet, I put about two ounces of alkanet in an glass pint canning jar (16oz jar) and then fill the jar the rest of the way with whatever liquid at room temperature oil I’m going to use in my recipe.  Carefully skake the jar and let it set for a week or until the oil is colored by the alkanet.  During the waiting period you can shake it ever now and then.   The longer you wait, the better the color.  Your mileage may vary.

When I get ready to make the soap I use about 8 ounces of this oil in a 3 pound recipe.   You will either want to pour the oil off the top of an undisturbed (unshaken or settled jar) or use a coffee filter or cheap paper towel to strain the oil bits of alkanet from the oil before you add the colored oil to your other oils in the recipe.   I usually use the cheap paper towel method.  LOL   The paper towel has two layers which I separate and just use one layer because it seems the oil drips thru that a little faster than it does two layers or the coffee filter.   Sometimes I run the alkanet colored oil through a layer of paper towels twice to be sure all the tiny bits of alkanet are removed.

The more colored oil you use in your recipe the darker the soap will be.  You may have heard that you can get blue from alkanet, the blue color has to do with pH.  Alkanet is sort of a pH indicator (but not really.)   I’ve hot processed or cooked an alkanet colored soap and during the cook at one point the soap is a beautiful blue color, but it doesn’t stay blue.  When the pH of the soap drops to a certain level then the alkanet colored soap turns a purplish color.  Blue is a very elusive color when you’re trying to color soap with herbs.  Most likely blue soap obtained by using alkanet is either not totally cured; perhaps even has a bit too much lye in it; or maybe you are just extremely lucky.  However, I would be willing to bet it is something other than luck.

After using the alkanet colored oil from the jar more oil can be added and the alkanet will color the oil again.  I’m not sure exactly how many times you can do this, but you can certainly use the alkanet more than once.  The soap may be a little lighter the next time, but you may not even notice it.  However, you may want to add a little extra alkanet powder to the jar.  If your oil is going to sit and infuse for some time between batches I wouldn’t worry about a color difference.

The same method can be used for annatto seeds.  You can use them over and over again.

You can find alkanet root powder and many other herbs at www.EllensEssentials.com

When it comes to fading, the simple truth is that you need to protect your products from UV rays.   Not only does the sun cause fading, but florescent lights also give off UV rays.  However, florescent lights are much slower acting than the sun. 

The sun is particularly cruel to both natural color additives and dyes.  So whether you are outside or inside, it’s possible that some fading may happen.  Your best bet is to protect your products with packaging. 

There are bottles and jars that are treated to resist UV rays, and then you have the good old brown paper bag approach to things.  Sometimes a decorative opaque container can be just as or even more attractive than a clear container.  It just depends on your marketing niche and how you want to present your products.

For coloring bath salts (which are a cosmetic) you would need to use a color additive that is approved by the FDA for use in cosmetics. There are lots of color additives that are approved for cosmetics,  however some of them do not work well in bath salts.

Ultramarines are basically made by heat treating kaolin clay and sulphur. At low pH’s (which is the range where bath salts are) ultramarines tend to break down and release sulphur giving off that lovely rotten egg smell. Not a very nice surprise for your customers. While these stink, LOL, they do
not fade.

Iron Oxides will work, but may also leave a residue in the tub. The good thing is they don’t fade.

Micas will work. Some will fade and some won’t. They will most likely leave a residue in the tub.

There are also natural colorants on the FDA’s approved colorant list. These are annatto, caramel, carmine and beta-carotene. There are a few more, but nothing that you would probably want to use in salts. These will all fade in sunlight or UV rays. There are no flowers (like blue malva - which will make water a lovely blue — too bad it does not hold up in soap) or chlorophyll listed on the approved list and using these “simply for the purpose of coloring” your salts would make them an adulterated product, you don’t want that.

Dyes offer the biggest color choice of all. You want to make sure that what you are using in on the approved list for cosmetics. And as with natural color additives, eventually dyes will eventually fade, particularly if exposed to UV rays. There are a couple dyes that are limited in the amount you can use in a product, Green 8 and Red 36, but generally you would have to add so much of these dyes to a product that the product would start coloring other items before you reached that limit.

Unless you are familiar with the ingredients in certain food colorants it is not a good idea  to use them in bath salts or other toiletries.  Some food colorants, particularly gel/paste food colorants, contain Blue#2 and Red#3.  Both Blue#2 and Red#3 are not approved by the FDA for use in cosmetics.

The link to the FDA’s list of approved color additives is: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/opa-col2.html 
You can look up the individual colors in 21 CFR part 73, subpart C and 21CFR part 74, subpart C.  Unless you are making make-up or lip stick and eyeshadow, you don’t really need to worrying about what you use as long as it is on the approved list for cosmetics.

I have been asked about the glycerin content of soap made with various oils.  Here is some information that might be helpful in figuring this out. 

First of all the glycerin recovered from commercial soaps is 80% (that does not mean that soap contains 80% glycerin, but that the recovered glycerin isn’t exactly pure.)  After glycerin is recovered from commercial soaps, it is distilled into a purer form.

Okay, that said, here is a list of the available percentages of 80% glycerin contributed to soap by some of the different oils which may be used in the making soap making process according to Modern Soap and Glycerin Manufacture, by E.T. Webb.

18% - Coconut
18% - Palm Kernel Oil
13% - Cottonseed Oil
13% - Soy Bean Oil
13% - Olive Oil
13% - Lard
12.5% - Tallow
12.5% - Castor Oil
12% - Palm Oil (bleached)

When figuring out the percentage of glycerin in your soap you will also have to take into account the percentage of lye, water, and any other additives like herbs, color or fragrance used in the recipe and some how figure how much water evaporates from your soap.

You can figure out how much water evaporates by weighing your soap at the end of the cure period.  Water weighs the same in volume as it does in weight, so 4 liquid ounces of water will weigh 4 ounces.  Whatever amount of weight your soap loses during the cure period, you will have to subtract that from you recipe to get the correct percentages for the ingredients of the recipe or formula.

Sorry, you’ll have to do your own math. 

Also remember that these numbers will simply give you an idea of how much glycerin is in a particular soap.  Just like saponification numbers of various oils, glycerin percentages will also vary from crop to crop depending on growing conditions and other things.   So, your milage may vary.

If you are considering using ultramarines and oxides blended with castor oil to color lip products, you might want to reconsider.  Sure, you will see on the FDA website that both ultramarines and oxides are safe to use in externally applied cosmetics, but what does that mean?

According to 21 CFR §70.3, “The terms externally applied drugs and externally applied cosmetics mean drugs or cosmetics applied only to external parts of the body and not to the lips or any body surface covered by mucous membrane.”

So the FDA restricts the use of the following color additives in lipsticks, lip glosses, lip balms or cosmetics applied to the lips.

Ultramarines
According to 21 CFR §73.2725 (c) “Uses and restrictions. The ultramarine pigments may be safely used for coloring externally applied cosmetics, including cosmetics intended for use in the area of the eye, in amounts consistent with good manufacturing practice.”

Hydrated Chromium Green
According to 21 CFR §73.2326(b) “Uses and restrictions. Chromium hydroxide green is safe for use in coloring externally applied cosmetics, including those intended for use in the area of the eye, in amounts consistent with good manufacturing practice.

Chromium Green Oxide
According to 21 CFR §73.2327(b) “Uses and restrictions. The color additive chromium oxide greens may be safely used in externally applied cosmetics, including cosmetics intended for use in the area of the eye, in amounts consistent with good manufacturing practice.”

So, if you want tint lipsticks, lip glosses or lip balms, consider using lakes instead of ultramarines or the above mentioned oxides.  If you want green consider a blend of yellow and blue lakes. 

That said, yellow, brown and black oxides are safe for general cosmetics, so there’s no problem with mixing them with castor oil and using those for color.

If you’re thinking about using micas your lip products, you may also want to check and see if the following are an ingredient in the mica you are considering.  Both of these color additives are usually primarily in blue micas, but they are also used in many other colored micas too.  You’ll need to be sure and do some research.

Ferric ferrocyanide. 
According to 21 CFR §73.2299(b) “Uses and restrictions. Ferric ferrocyanide is safe for use in coloring externally applied cosmetics, including cosmetics applied to the area of the eye, in amounts consistent with good manufacturing practice.”

Ferric ammonium ferrocyanide. 
According to 21 CFR §73.2298(b) “Uses and restrictions. Ferric ammonium ferrocyanide is safe for use in coloring externally applied cosmetics, including cosmetics applied to the area of the eye, in amounts consistent with good manufacturing practice.”

Sorry it’s been a while since we’ve written anything new.  We’ve been quite busy here and time seems to fly.

We’ve have however added some new pages to the blog which detail the cold process soap making method. 

A lot of our readers already know how to make soap, but just incase some newbies stop by we’d like to share the info with them.  The instructions can be found by clicking here and following the links.

We’ll be adding more information the near future for both newbies and experienced soap makers, so stop back by when you can. 

And if you’re looking for soap making supplies, stop by Ellen’s Essentials.

 
Aren’t they pretty?  They’re all colored with herbs too!  We had lots of fun experimenting.  Sometimes you never know what you’ll get when you color soaps with herbs.  Sometimes the result is quite surprising, especially when the resulting color of the soap looks nothing like the herb that was used.

You can view the results for the individual herbs used the soap swap HERE, along with the method used for coloring the soap.

If you’re wanting to try your hand at coloring with herbs, stop by Ellen’s Essentials.

.38 is the magic number! 

This number is derived by assuming that 1 ounce of soap will equal 1 cubic inch.  This calculation also assumes that you are using 6 ounces of water in your recipe per pound of oils.

Since soap is made of oils, water and alkali, the calculations to find the volume of oils which will fit in the mold  made by multiplying the mold area by the percentage of water.  For some reason, the alkali is completely ignored in this calculation.  I don’t know why.  At any rate, this calculation works. 

So, let’s assume you have a slab mold.  You figure the area of a log mold the same way, but we’ll just assume it’s a slab right now.   This mold is 10 inches long, 8.5 inches wide and you want your soap to be 1.5 inches thick. 

Length  x Width x Height = Cubic Inches Area of Mold

8.5 x 10 x 1.5 = 127.5 

You’ll need 127.5 cubic inches of soap.

Then you would take this number 127.5 and multiply the number by .38 

MoldArea X Water% = Soap Oil Volume 

127.5 x .38 =  48.45

And since a pound of oils weighs 16 oz. divide 48.45 by 16.

48.45 / 16 = 3.028 Pounds of Oil

So now you know that a recipe containing 3 pounds of oil will fit in to your 8.5″ X 10″ mold and the soap will be  approximately 1.5″ inches thick.

On a side note, discounting the water in the recipe below 6 ounces per pound of oils used will cause the volume of the soap to be slightly less than what the calculations show.  Likewise, adding a large amount of botanicals, clays, and fragrances to your soap will cause the mold will be fuller than you expect.    

NO, it’s not cheese, it’s soap.  But it looks delicious! 

This soap was made with annatto seeds for color.   Annatto is a natural color additive that is used by the cheese industry to get that wonderful golden cheddar color.  It’s also on the FDA’s approved color additive list for use cosmetics.

In our recipe (below) we infused 2 tablespoons of annatto seeds in 6 ounces of canola oil.   We added the seeds to the oil and let is sit for a week before we used it.  

This infusion can probably be sped up by adding the oil to a skillet and adding the seeds and heating it up a little bit to get the seeds to release the color, but we decided to let time work for us.  After the oil was infused we strained out the seeds.  We did not add the seeds to our soap. 

The great thing about annatto seeds is you can use them over and over again, several times.  Once the oil is strained out, add more oil, put it back on the shelf, and you’ll have oil ready to use next time.

At trace the soap looked like banana pudding.  But once the soap sat overnight in the mold and we cut into it, the color was even more spectacular. 

This is the test recipe we used.

4 oz. Coconut Oil
6 oz. Shortening
6 oz. Canola Oil (infused)

6 oz. water
2.2 oz. NaOH

 This isn’t the best recipe there is, but it’s a good test recipe.  We wanted a recipe with ingredients that could be found by most anyone at the grocery store.  This recipe has a nice lather, and it’s even better if you boost is some with a little castor oil.  Not everyone likes using these oils.  It all comes down to purpose and personal preference.  You can use what you like your own soap recipe.  If you use annatto seeds too, we’re positive you’ll love the color no mater what you use.

This annatto soap looks like sharp cheddar, but we’re thinking it would be nice with an orange or tangerine scent.  If you’d like to use fragrance oils, then maybe a mango fragrance or even a good peach if you can find one.  Don’t forget about floral scents, daffodil and rose would go really good with this color too!

Ellen’s Essentials Yahoo Group is hosting a Naturally Colored Soap Swap.  Each participant is using herbs to color their soaps.  It’s really going to be interesting to see all the different soaps colored with herbs.  As soon as the swap is complete I’ll post some pictures of the soaps and some information on the herbs used. 

In the mean time, feel free to come join Ellen’s Essentials Yahoo Group.  We’ve been posting about the swap over there.  Some of the herbs we’ve used in the swap presented some very interesting results.