Sorrel Root and Lady's Bedstraw for pink soap

Hi everyone....first post here. I've been reading a lot and enjoying all the great info here. Thought this would be the best way to find the info I need so i can stop googling for a spell.

I've been using plant based colorants for my CP soap and I am looking for Sorrel Root Powder and Lady's Bedstraw Root Powder to get soft pinks. Has anyone found a good source for these botanicals? I have found Yellow Dock Root but would like to find the other two to play around with.


So far, this is what we've been playing with, color wise....

Annatto (infused into Apricot oil) used at 11% (mango color)
Paprika (infused into Apricot oil) used at 10% (peachy)
Tumeric (infused into Sunflower oil) used at 10-12% (buttery yellow)
Parsley (infused into olive oil) used at 20-40% (natural green)
Comfrey (infused into olive oil) used at 40% (sage green)
Woad leaf powder (added at trace) 1/8 tsp PPO (medium light blue)
Ratanjot (infused into sunflower oil or rice bran oil) used at 10-15% (purple)
Rose kaolin - added at trace as a slurry and used as a swirl

NOTE: For ratanjot, we used a recipe that was comprised of all light colored oils to avoid getting a greyish hue. ALL the infusions used were obtained by cold infusion for a minimum of 2 weeks. I actually thought Ratanjot and alkanet were the same thing BUT they are not....I have NOT yet tried alkanet, primarily because it is not as readily available as ratanjot which I just pick up at my local indian grocery store

Fantastic information ... thanks!

I've use tumeric, paprika, cinnamon. calendula and cocoa. I love the idea of using parsley ... as I love the colour and I have loads of it growing in my garden!

Do you have photos of your soap?

I do need to take a quick pic of all the soaps lined up - just waiting for the woad soap to be ready to unmold.....tomorrow evening.

As for the parsley, I've only used dried parsley powder.

Oh, we've also done charcoal....and lemon peel powder (added at trace) which when combined with lemon & lemongrass EOs , turns a lovely golden yellow.

I have used rattanjot a lot, and I have never ended up with gray soap. My recipe uses oils that are quite yellow. I do find, however, that it LOOKS very gray, almost like mud, when you are mixing it. The purple shows up upon exposure to air. Even when I cut the soap, the outside is purple and the inside is mud puddle. It took a leap of faith the first time.

Is Sorrel Root the same thing as Sheep Sorrel Root? If it is, then you can get it here: http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/bulkherb/s.php

Are you sure Lady Bedshaw Root doesn't have another name?

Yes indeed it is....BUT it is the root which is supposed to yield the pink color. Mountainrose sells the "aerial parts" - I have no idea what the aerial part of the plant will do color-wise

Won't know until you try. 8) And then of course, post about it so we'll all know how it went. Don't forget the pictures... we like pictures.

I'll get some good pics tomorrow - just unmolded and cut the woad soap but I get better pics with natural light.

By the way....I used my brand new Tank to cut the woad soap....YAY!

My Tank was the best soapy investment I ever made.

Did you go ahead and purchase the Sheep Sorrel, even though it wasn't the root?

You stated in a previous post in this thread that your woad is leaf powder. Last week I found a very detailed and what appears to be time consuming tutorial on making woad dye. It would be so much easier to grind up the leaves than to go through all the steps of the tutorial. I'm very interested to see if you got similar results from the leaf powder. Woad is SO expensive that I'm considering growing my own and making my own dye. Woad is an invasive weed in my area, so I may be lucky enough to find some by the side of the road, if not in my own back yard.

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OK here they are from left to right.....

White soap
Tumeric infused (10%) + yellow kaolin
Red kaolin
Rose kaolin
Paprika infused (11%)
Lemon Peel
Annatto infused (11%)
Tumeric Infused (12%)
Parsley infused (20%)
Comfrey infused (40%)
Woad added at trace (1/8 tsp PPO)
Ratanjot infused (5%)
Ratanjot infused (10%)
Charcoal (1 tblsp PPO)

Considering how little woad needed, it ends up being inexpensive. It does morph.....it turns cadaver greyish beige and develops during the gel phase into the nice sky blue/light denim color. I might try indigo next.

As for the sheep sorrel, I will order some thru MRH along with the yellow dock root for another pink. Once we play catch up with our soap schedule, we can play with more colors. I love plant colors!!!!

LOVELY!!! I'm in awe.

I have some woad and indigo, but have not used either yet. It's in line with the 89 fragrance oils and a couple dozen herbs being infused... they will have to wait their turns.

How long and at what rate are you doing your infusions? I'm doing 1 tbsp in 8 oz of oil for 6 hours in the crock pot. I did a soap this morning using 15% annatto seed infused olive oil and the color I got was much darker... pumpkin orange. Will have to see what it looks like when it's all done tomorrow. (In the mold under the heating pad right now.)

I did the same thing with alkanet root and got a very dark, too dark purple.

Have you tried your charcoal soap yet? I use 2 teaspoons ppo. The soap is black, but the lather is a very light grey. I'm going to reduce a bit, want it a true black, but don't want grey lather.

Edited to add: Your white soap is just as lovely as the rest.

Have you seen this:

http://www.the-soap-dish.com/natural-soap-colorants.htm

So many to try, so little time.

@ debbism: thank you, this is so interesting and looks so great!
How long were your soaps unmold before taking the picture and do you expect colour change in time?
@ MissMori: thank you for the link, and indeed...so much more to try!

I particularly like the green from parsely. Did you use dry parsley infused in olive oil. I would love to try that. Did you use flakes. All your soap turned out very well. Your Tank has made great cuts..Thanks for sharing your pics.

Thank you for taking the time to post the pics so we can see the results! I love the parsley and the woad.

The herb infusions are all cold infusions - I used different ratios of oil to herb...

Parsley 5 oz in 20 oz oil - I used powdered from WSP
Annatto 8 tblsp in 20 oz oil
Ratanjot 3oz in 20 oz oil
Tumeric 6 tblsp in 22 oz oil
Paprika 4 tblsp in 24 oz oil

I did most infusions for a minimum of one week to start but with time being precious, some oils steeped for far longer as things got shuffled around...i think that after 3 weeks or so, there isn't as much difference.

Some of these soaps (the shorter ones in the pic) have been fully cured and there was not much difference in color development between the time I unmolded and cut until it was fully cured. EXCEPT FOR RATANJOT! It seems to develop into a nicer purple as the alkalinity goes down and it fully cured - the navy blue hue dissipates and the eggplant purple becomes apparent. The taller soaps (including the woad and 5% ratanjot were unmolded and cut last night. The 5% ratanjot might lighten up some while the pH drops in curing. When we used a 15% ratanjot, it took a full 4 weeks for the purple to lose most of the navy blue hue. Not sure what the woad will do since it is light BUT it is one of those colors that morphs as it saponifies.....could lighten a touch

I have that link from the soap dish bookmarked but for colors, I usually try to stick with infusions over adding the whole herb at trace since i am not a fan of scratchier textures UNLESS I am making an exfoliator soap. Many of these herbs have been noted to turn brown when added whole too but nothing is being said about whether or not they can be infused for color. I guess it just takes googling around on each herb and you'll eventually find info on infusing for color. Needless to say, we go through a lot of cheesecloth

That being said, we are going to try madder root added at trace and see what the color and consistency is - it might end up being an exfoliator.....but I would like to test it out as an infusion too. We want a deep terra cotta red but we'll see what the soap wants to do with it!

Wow! Thanks for all the great info. I'd love to try some natural collorants at some point. Having this as a reference will be great!

For deep terra cotta red, perhaps clay. I have an Australian clay that gives a deep brick red. Hmm... terra cotta is a bit more orange than brick?

It is a lot of trial an error, but so much fun. I've been infusing straight in OO and then straining with a fine mesh strainer. If the oil is still cloudy, I then strain through a coffee filter. I need to get some of those iron seal tea bags. It would be so much easier.

I'm trying to get somewhat consistent color, so heat infusion is the way I'm going. X amount of plant matter to Y amount of oil for Z amount of time.

There is another list online, somewhere, that lists the colorant by color, not alphabetically. I'll have to try to find it again.

Here it is

http://www.mullerslanefarm.com/soapcolors.html

and

http://www.snowdriftfarm.com/naturalcolors.html

Thank you. The Muller Lane Farm is the one I was thinking of.