Anyone used chlorophyll to colour soap?

[Izzye]

I've got an olive/coconut bar with ground nettles that I was hoping would come out green but it's more of a sort of browny-grey. I've tried using spirulina but I really don't like the smell it results in (and it faded to a light yellow around the edges of the bars I made in individual moulds?) and I was contemplating chlorophyll. I've found a lot of shops selling a powdered alga called chlorella and was wondering if anyone has had any experience with using it?

 

[Obsidian]

I've not personally used but others have and it, like other natural green plant material, it will fade to a yellowy green over time. If you want a true green that stays, you will have to look into micas or oxides.

 

[shunt2011]

I tried it once a long time ago and eventually faded to a very very pale yellowish color. Never used it again.

 

[KellySoapCo]

I would not expect it to add any different than the spirulina. Spirulina (I know it as cyano bacteria in the aquarium hobby) is an algae like organism that uses chlorophyll for photosynthesis. The green in the spirulina you tried already is also from chlorophyll.

 

[MissE]

I made one of my very first soaps using splina. I didn't know a lot about measurements and percentages then or anything else, really, and I just poured the liquid splina into the barter until I liked the color--a nice oyster green. That was about 8 months ago and the soap is still the exact same nice green.

Beginners luck maybe?

 

[SaltedFig]

Could you post a photo?

And if you could include anything about your recipe, that would be terrific!

I would be especially curious to know the brand name of the liquid that you used, as they may have included a colourant (and the only way to tell for sure would be to get enough information to research the ingredients in the liquid you used).

(Not knocking your experience MissE, but intrigued at the difference in outcomes for the green, and trying to work out what the difference is).

I made one of my very first soaps using splina. I didn't know a lot about measurements and percentages then or anything else, really, and I just poured the liquid splina into the barter until I liked the color--a nice oyster green. That was about 8 months ago and the soap is still the exact same nice green.

Beginners luck maybe?

 

[Obsidian]

The only time spirulina stayed green for me was when it was stored in the dark. It did eventually turn olive green but it took a few months. I did a experiment once, took a new bar of soap colored with spirulina and set it outside in the bright sun, it faded to yellow in just a few hours so light is a big factor.

 

[JuliaNegusuk]

I use green tea wax to colour my soap green, available from Soap Kitchen. It is quite expensive but you only need a tiny bit to get a good green colour, I use 0.5 of a gram to 600g of soap oils. It produces what I,d call an "avocado bathroom suite" colour green. I won,t say it will never fade but I think it lasts longer than other green colours i have tried like spirulina and nettle powder. But i do store soap in the dark.
You could try green clay. I have not used this personally but it is another option. Perhaps others could comment but I would have thought being clay rather than a plant product it would be less likely to fade.

 

[Kittish]

Chlorophyll is an unstable molecule, and exposure to light will cause it to break down. This is part of why leaves turn colors and brown in the fall/winter. The leaves stop producing new chlorophyll, and what's present breaks down and allows the other pigments it was masking to show through.

 

[JuliaNegusuk]

Interesting. After reading your problem I have looked at my latest batch of green soap. It too has white marks on the corners and edges which look slightly crumbly. But so has my yellow soap, to a lesser extent, which was coloured with calendular petals. Weird. But the one soap that hasn,t gone white was an overflow soap in another mould. (I also use single cell silicon moulds). So perhaps it is a mould issue partly, though it hasn,t happened to my other soaps coloured with cocoa powder and madder root.
I cut the spare soap in half to check it wasn,t a mix issue,eg the cocoa butter not mixing or something, it looks fine in the middle. I don,t know what could have caused this. I am sure it didn,t happen last time I made green soap.

 

[MorpheusPA]

Chlorophyll is an unstable molecule, and exposure to light will cause it to break down. This is part of why leaves turn colors and brown in the fall/winter. The leaves stop producing new chlorophyll, and what's present breaks down and allows the other pigments it was masking to show through.

I love you and everything you stand for.

(sorry, my other major, major hobby is gardening and, needless to say, I grow most of my own botanicals...)

 

[SaltedFig]

Beautiful Morpheus!

(Do you have Calendula? - it's vibrant orange would go perfectly with your colour theme!)

 

[MorpheusPA]

Beautiful Morpheus!

(Do you have Calendula? - it's vibrant orange would go perfectly with your colour theme!)

I don't, but mostly because I already have orange marigold--including some taller ones that aren't specifically featured here.

 

[Millie]

(sorry, my other major, major hobby is gardening and, needless to say, I grow most of my own botanicals...)

Stunning!

P.s. That is my major hobby as well! Glad I found soaping to fill up the winter months, but boy do I miss the garden this time of year.

 

[Kittish]

I love you and everything you stand for.

(sorry, my other major, major hobby is gardening and, needless to say, I grow most of my own botanicals...)

That's a pretty, pretty garden.

I studied chlorophyll fairly closely not all that long ago, because it occurred to me to wonder why in the world plants were using the least energetic wavelengths. Why aren't leaves black? Why don't they use the whole spectrum? Turns out that chlorophyll is quite likely to be the most stable molecule for what it does, and even it isn't very stable.

 

[MissE]

Could you post a photo?

And if you could include anything about your recipe, that would be terrific!

I would be especially curious to know the brand name of the liquid that you used, as they may have included a colourant (and the only way to tell for sure would be to get enough information to research the ingredients in the liquid you used).

(Not knocking your experience MissE, but intrigued at the difference in outcomes for the green, and trying to work out what the difference is).

Yes, I will. I've taken a picture and will post as soon as I find my USB cable, which is hiding somewhere or get a new one when I'm out. Uses a Memory Stick Pro Duo so I can't use lappie to retrieve. Stand by.

I almost forgot until . . . and here is a closeup:

# Here's a link to the liquid chlorophyll I used (I didn't purchase at the link, just pulled that out to show anyone who's interested) and it has no colors or preservatives added, according to the manufacter's label.