# Clays colored with plants



## szaza (Feb 1, 2020)

Thanks to @Mobjack Bay 's wonderful experiments with madder (here) the idea arose to color white clay using an alcohol tincture (this method seemed to hold its color better than using the tincture straight up)

This is how I did it:
I made some tinctures in September using the method described here (soaking plant matter in ethanol or isopropanol for a wheek, straining it and letting it evaporate to half the original weight to increase the strength of the color). Mobjack Bay's method is a bit different and is described in her madder thread (she uses part water, part alcohol and boils down the liquid to a gel)
I soaked 5g of white kaolin clay in 10g of tincture for 5 different colorants (spirulina, moringa and wheatgrass infused ethanol, annatto and alkanet in isopropanol) and let the alcohol evaporate to create a colored clay (this took about 2-3 days). 
I then made a slurry from the clay with 10g water per colorant and made slurries from green and pink french clays, also with 5g clay+10g water (+-1tsp clay +2tsp water). 
Then I made a batch of soap with 500g oils, divided it into 7 portions, mixed in the clay and poured in the mold (I did a water discount for the water added to the clay). This is quite a lot of clay, 35g/500g is a bit more than 2tbs ppo, but this way I was using the same amount of colorant from the tincture I normally would and I've read some people like to use 2tbs ppo even though it's higher than the regularly suggested amount (I used this much in a soap once and it was fine, so I don't expect any problems with the soap itself)

These are the pictures: 
White clay soaked in tincture (left to right: spirulina, annatto, moringa, alkanet, wheatgrass)




Dried out colored clay (look how the alkanet changed color!)



Added french green and pink clays for comparison



Added water to the clays 



And finally the freshly cut soap


(Bottom to top: french green clay, french pink clay, spirulina, annatto, moringa, alkanet, wheatgrass)

The french pink clay wasn't mixed in properly, but did give a lovely color at this high percentage of clay. French green clay as well as wheatgrass are a soft kaki/muddy green, but overall the colors are brighter than I expected. Spirulina is a lovely vibrant green, annatto a delicate sunshine yellow, moringa is a softer green and alkanet is blue for the moment, but since it's pH sensitive I'll have to wait a week to see the actual color.


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## Kcryss (Feb 1, 2020)

szaza said:


> Thanks to @Mobjack Bay 's wonderful experiments with madder (here) the idea arose to color white clay using an alcohol tincture (this method seemed to hold its color better than using the tincture straight up)



Thanks for the update and all your work! Love the colors! Looking forward to the updates.


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## Mobjack Bay (Feb 1, 2020)

How exciting!  That soap makes me feel happy, happy, happy 

Lately I’ve been leaving my water and alcohol solutions open to the air for a bit to let the alcohol evaporate, i.e. rather than using heat.  Then I add the clay and let it soak. Without looking at my notes, I think I first went down the path of using diluted alcohol because the madder was going a bit browner in 91% isopropyl.  I don’t know if that means the stronger alcohol was pulling out more of the brown pigments, or maybe the water was pulling out more of the red pigment.  In any case, it may be a consideration for keeping madder as pink as possible.

I’m interested in trying your approach, especially now that I’ve started making “tinctures” using water and household ammonia, which is slower to evaporate.  How dry did the clay get before you made the slurry?  Was it easy to homogenize?  I guess I always assumed that I would end up with a hard brick if I let the clay dry.


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## Kcryss (Feb 1, 2020)

Quick question about the isopropanol. Here in the US, isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol) comes in varying strengths. 50%, 70% and 91%. @Mobjack Bay  used the 50% (50 alcohol, 50 water). Is isopropanol 100%?


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## szaza (Feb 1, 2020)

@Kcryss I just checked the bottle and it doesn't have a percentage written on it, so I kind of assume it's (near) 100%. The ethanol is denatured with bitrex (just in case you were wondering)

@Mobjack Bay, I was worried about the same thing. I stirred the clay up after 2 days when it was rather dry and got a powder with small clumps. The layer of clay was quite thin, so I'm sure that helped. When I was ready to make soap, I added the water and waited a bit (a trick I learned from using big clunks of rhassoul clay for hair masks) when I mixed it up after a few minutes there were no more clumps.


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## Jenna D (Feb 1, 2020)

This thread reminded me of sonething and I just had to comment!  I total bombed a soap prior to Christmas.  I decided to make a CP soap with Santa's Spruce scent.  When I went to mix some Micas I accidentally used alcohol instead of oil! I didn't realize it until after I poured it into my soap batter. The alcohol made the mica clump up ( like when a soap rices).  Nothing helped it blend in. Totally ruined!

Sorry, I got distracted and didnt finish.  I had blended 3 different shades of green.  I didn't use all the mica/alcohol mix. But rather set it to the side. About a week later I was moving things around my soap room and found the mica mix cup. The alcohol had totally evaporated and left a beautiful green mica powder.  Which I promptly stored for future use!


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## StormyK (Feb 3, 2020)

Really interesting experiments here.

Does the clay help the natural colorant stick?


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## szaza (Feb 3, 2020)

That's what I'm hoping for!


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## Dawni (Feb 6, 2020)

szaza said:


> That's what I'm hoping for!


Looking forward to your updates hehehe


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## szaza (Feb 6, 2020)

(almost) 1 week update. The alkanet has gotten a tinge of purple, but it's still on the blue side of the purple spectrum. It is definitely purple to my eye, but different from other alkanet colors.
Here's a comparison of the clay soap at 1 week with a soap colored with alkanet in isopropanol (round soap) and alkanet infused in sunflower oil (edit: I meant to say rectangular soap)


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## Kcryss (Feb 8, 2020)

I wonder if adding plain uncolored mica to the clays would give them a bit brighter color. Was thinking about ordering some mica and trying it out. Has anyone tried this already?


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## Kcryss (Feb 22, 2020)

szaza said:


> (almost) 1 week update. The alkanet has gotten a tinge of purple, but it's still on the blue side of the purple spectrum. It is definitely purple to my eye, but different from other alkanet colors.
> Here's a comparison of the clay soap at 1 week with a soap colored with alkanet in isopropanol (round soap) and alkanet infused in sunflower oil (edit: I meant to say rectangular soap)
> View attachment 43807



Are the colors still holding up in the soap?

I made some colored clay using the same process, soaking in 91% isopropyl (the highest available here), straining out the liquid and mixing the liquid with white kaolin clay. I just used plants I had on hand: hibiscus, parsley, alfalfa, kelp, annatto seed, and madder. I have the parsley and hibiscus drying right now and can't wait to try them. I love the color you got from the spirulina. Will have to get some soon and try it out. 

I love the color of hibiscus, but it turns brown in soap as does parsley. I have really high hopes for both of these to keep their colors. 
I also ordered some plain uncolored mica to mix with the powders hoping to give a little brighter color. Hopefully the order will be here this week and I can try it out.


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## szaza (Feb 23, 2020)

I think it's holding up ok so far, but it has only been 3 weeks.. here's a picture I took this morning


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## Kcryss (Feb 23, 2020)

szaza said:


> I think it's holding up ok so far, but it has only been 3 weeks.. here's a picture I took this morning
> View attachment 44075



Yay! Thanks for posting! I agree, still looks great!


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## Kcryss (Feb 27, 2020)

I used the hibiscus colored clay in the batch I made tonight ... sort of anyway. I ended up with play-doh batter. So I put what was left on a small piece and watched it change from pink to a purple color. In these pictures:
the first is the color it ended up being after mixing the colored alcohol with the white kaolin clay and leaving it to dry for a few days
the second is after spreading a little on top of the semi-hardened batter
the third, I finished spreading the color around on the soap

I have no idea if it will turn brown by morning like hibiscus does ... but I'm hoping it stays purple.


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## szaza (Feb 28, 2020)

That's really interesting! I'll put hibiscus alcohol infusion on my to-do list


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## Kcryss (Feb 28, 2020)

szaza said:


> That's really interesting! I'll put hibiscus alcohol infusion on my to-do list



Don't bother with the to-do list. It was a fail. Whatever the pigment is that causes it to turn brown carries over to the clay. Brown this morning, just like using the flowers.


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## szaza (Feb 28, 2020)

Oh that's too bad! I'm so sorry to hear that


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## Kcryss (Feb 28, 2020)

szaza said:


> Oh that's too bad! I'm so sorry to hear that


Yeah, I am a bit saddened by it as well. Hibiscus has such a great pink/purple color. Oh well, at least we're trying. I'm sure more amazing colors will be found using the clay coloring method. Still a great option for sure. Besides, I love the experimenting. Yours all still show great promise.


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## szaza (Mar 14, 2020)

6 week update!


Not seeing much difference yet, I'll be back at 3 months (I hope I remember)


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## Kcryss (Mar 14, 2020)

This is great news! Thanks for all your experimenting. I have several colors drying out right now. Hoping to use them soon!


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## szaza (Apr 23, 2020)

Almost 3 month update.. the colors are still bright, but are starting to fade a little. I tried the soap and it was absolutely disgusting. I used a high oleic recipe and I normally start to like this recipe around the 3 month mark, but this was just slime and sludge galore. Apparently the high amount of clays attract more moisture and the soap just doesn't dry between uses.





I also did another soap colored with clays, about a week ago.
Pink is just regular pink kaolin clay, used at 5g/100g oils (or +-1.5Tablespoon ppo).
Blue was 5g white kaolin clay with a pinch of indigo powder mixed in (my scale doesn't measure reliably for weights under 0.15g, so not sure how much I added exactly).
Grey/purple was 5g white kaolin clay soaked in 24g of alkanet infused in isopropanol and left to evaporate (2.4x as much as last time, though I used less of the clay -> 5g/100g instead of 7g/100g). I was hoping that using more infusion in making the clay would give me a darker, more saturated purple with less clay.. that doesn't seem to have worked out very well.

The purple in the new soap seems to stay more grey after a week of cure. Maybe it's the recipe -which is very different in FA profile, see below- maybe I shouldn't have used less clay soaked in more infusion.. I'm just not really sure. I do hope this soap will turn out to be less slimy than the other one!  
I now know I can use indigo powder straight up mixed in clay if I want to incorporate blue into the design and I really don't need much to get a deep blue (it looked rather pale when mixed in clay, I'm sorry I didn't take a picture)
Lastly, weird enough the pink seems to look a lot more orange in the new soap than in the old, that could be because I used a bit less (5g/100g vs 7g/100g) or maybe the recipe plays a role and high palmitic/stearic brings out more of the orange tones while high oleic brings out more pinkish/reddish tones. 

These are the recipes I used: the first test (in this picture on the right) was 25% coconut/75% HO sunflower - my go to recipe for tests, because it's cheap and I still like how it turns out after a reasonable amount of cure. The last soap was made with 50% (refined) shea butter, 30% RBO and 20% coconut oil. This one also accelerated like crazy and I'm not sure if it was the RBO, the clays or the EO blend (50% amyris, don't have enough experience to know if that one accelerates) or all of the above - I know it's not the high amount of butters, because I'd made a perfectly behaved batch of soap with 50% butters just the day before this one.


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## Kcryss (Apr 23, 2020)

Thanks for the update @szaza! Still looks very promising!
My experiments have gone pretty much the same as yours, although I'm still working on getting the amounts amounts and infusion type consistent. Some plants don't do well it seems with alcohol and have to be infused in oil. Sadly, the one I want the most, alkanet, needs the oil to draw out the color.


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## szaza (Apr 23, 2020)

@Kcryss that's weird, alkanet infuses very well in isopropanol for me, while I've been having mixed results with oil infusions


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## Belindasuds (Apr 23, 2020)

@szaza I am LOVING your experiments and the results. Thanks so much for sharing both your experiments and the links to those who inspired you. Definitely inspired to test some of these techniques out myself now too.


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## szaza (May 3, 2020)

szaza said:


> pink seems to look a lot more orange in the new soap than in the old,


I did another soap with 30% RBO and realized it discolors the batter to a yellowish cream color, which is probably the reason why the pink clay in the second soap is more orange and might also contribute to the alkanet staying more greyish instead of purple


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## szaza (Aug 29, 2020)

It's been over 6 months, so time for an update. The colors are still there, though a bit less intense (especially alkanet)
Early February:


Late August:


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## Dawni (Sep 3, 2020)

Thanks for the updates!

It seems annatto is a winner as far as natural colorants go, with spirulina coming in second.

I wish my pink clay gave that much color lol


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## szaza (Sep 3, 2020)

Dawni said:


> Thanks for the updates!
> 
> It seems annatto is a winner as far as natural colorants go, with spirulina coming in second.
> 
> I wish my pink clay gave that much color lol



Haha I wish my green clay would actually be green  

Annatto is a winner, but I'm not sure if the whole alcohol extraction and evaporation process has a benefit compared to normal oil infusion. I like the color of alkanet in isopropanol and clay better than what I get with oil infusions, but it fades, so a bit of a trade-off (at the same time, oil infusions are somethimes stable and sometimes not, no idea why, it's finnicky stuff this alkanet). 
I think spirulina is holding up pretty well with this method compared to just adding at trace, so it might be an alternative to green clay.

Just as a side note, I used a 75%HO sunflower /15% CO recipe for this soap, because it's cheap (my go-to recipe for test soaps). Somehow the clay makes this recipe way more slimy than it usually is. The base recipe is a bit slimy, but usable with pretty nice lather from around 3 months cure (for my taste at least), but with the added clay it's a horrific slimy mess even after 6 months cure that I refuse to use or give away. Silver linings: I'll be updating for quite a while still


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