Coloring Soap

One of the most interesting facets of soap making is that you get to choose on your own the color that you want your soaps to look like. These colors will surely complement the scents that you have chosen for your soaps so it’s a must that exact colors are selected. The colors can be as bright as the sun or as lovely as the heart. What ever you can imagine your soaps would be like the coloring soap can do just that.

Coloring soap comes in different forms. The ones that are available in the market today are the micas, dyes, botanicals, and the pigment. All these are what make up the coloring soap that is used in one of those soap-making projects. If you want to start your own soap making, then you better learn the soap colorant that is now widely used.

If you want to go for the natural homemade soap, then natural soap coloring or the botanical soap coloring is what you need. These natural colorants can work well with natural essential oils. So if you wish to make natural lavender soap then you can use natural colorants. These natural colorants are obtained from seeds, barks, or petals. Natural colorants are also known as homemade soap coloring because you can just extract the color of the herbs and spices right at your kitchen. Isn’t it wonderful to know that you can actually use herb and spice colors for soaps? These ingredient are totally safe to use ad are environmentally friendly as well.

Pigment is also used as a soap colorant. Pigments are mineral-based originally, however there are already pigments that are manufactured in the laboratories; these are what we call the synthetic pigments. The nice thing about the pigments that are now commercially produced is that they are now free from harmful chemicals such as lead, arsenic, and mercury. For those who want to use a pigment for their soap making projects they better be sure that the chosen color has been mixed thoroughly so that color lumping is avoided. Pigment is bet used in clod-press soap making method because the pigment retains its color.

For a sparkling effect for your soaps especially if you are using Halloween soap molds the micas are the perfect match. These micas are what make the glittery effect of your lip balm, aromatherapy candles, nail polish. They are also mixed in paints and plastics. Micas works best with transparent melt-and-pour soap making method to allow the glitter to flirt with lights effectively. Just make sure that the micas used in coloring are of cosmetic grades to ensure that the finished product will not harm the skin.

Perhaps one of the most popular among the colorants that is used in almost anything that needs coloring is the dye. Dyes are used in aromatherapy candle making as much as they are used in soap making. Dyes are easy to mixed with other ingredients, however a careful step is necessary to make sure that the dye does not fade easily when exposed to the light or after several days of keeping the soap.

Aside from the necessary colorants to one other important aspect of soap making that all soapers should know is how to artistically apply the colorants into the mixture. If you want your soap to go beyond from the ordinary one color you can make your soap to look like marbles. The ripple effect can be done by not thoroughly mixing the color with the mixture, thus only a portion is affected by the color. Of course there are other techniques and perhaps you can make your own experiment.

All the soap colorants are available at Brambleberry and for the natural color loyalists the North Country Soaps provides a list of natural colorants that are obtained from herbs and spices. So take your pick and start the fun.