Natural Soap Colourant - experiment Part 2

So I have been experimenting with some additional natural soap colourants – Madder Root and Alkanet Root Powder. See last months entry for Part 1 where I added Madder Root and Alkanet at trace to the soap.

Part 2 of the experiment was infusing the oils with madder root and alkanet and then using the infused oils to make soap. Here is a picture of the jug used to make the Alkanet root powder infused soap (yes, I know the jug is red – after lots of small batch soap making recently, it was all I had available, as I usually use white jugs!) I was so excited to see the lush purple hues come through - naturally!

I could not wait to unmold the infused oil soaps!

Here is the Alkanet root infused oil soap - 

It does look a little more mauve in real life, but not Purple and definately not as purple as what was in teh jug above. I think I might need to insultate a little more to ensure the soap goes through gel to bring the colour out. It is winter in Australia and rather cold! Still, I do love the Alkanet Root Powder soap and the depth of the colour, however, I wonder whether it will lather purple? I will let this soap cure for four weeks and them report back, as to the colour of the lather.


Here is the Madder Root infused oil soap - 

The Madder Root Powder infused soap is lovely, but again, for this kind of colour, I do prefer the warmth that I achieve with natural clays.

VERDICT – I will not be introducing Madder root powder into Bare Naked Body soaps, as I prefer the depth of colour and effect I achieve with Clays.

I will be doing further experiments with Alkanet Root Powder infused oils and soaps as I really want to achieve a natural purple colour! Stay tuned for further purple soap soon!


Lisa P