Before I buy, a question on colorants

[AliOop]

I want to be the kind of person who can mix my own micas from a set of primary colors. But I have to be realistic and accept the fact that I can barely achieve consistent results even with premade colors in various hues. So it is better if I buy the shade that I want to ensure that it turns out something close to what I planned.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Then all you need is Red, Blue and Yellow (along with some black oxide or A/C and TD) and you can make any color that you want.

…if you're fine with being trapped within the gamut of the CMYK colour space. Mixing is a pain from the precision perspective, as well as when pigments behave differently with respect to natural colour of the soap batter, opacity, gel/not gel, reaction with lye, and fading with age. On top of this, many bright colours are not accessible via blending primary colours (in subtractive colour models). Vibrant yellows (other than the primary yellow), bright green, light aqua blue and deep violets are notorious examples that no printer of the world (nor a soapmaker who uses the same primary colours) can create – without special colours. In my library I've found a colour atlas that has been printed in CMYK plus 15 (!) special colours, plus apologies from the printers that they still had to make many compromises to reproduce the colour samples in their halfways original appearance.

 

[Carly B]

Thanks for the advice! I'll have to get a mixing chart!

Nurture has a "Color Blender" on their site. Color Blender

It won't be exact for you since you are using different micas than hers, but it could help give you some ideas.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

I've bought most of my Micas from NG' I love there florissant colors. They seam to disburse well in my soap. I do pre-mix my colors in oil prior to adding to soap & calculate a oil discount in soap recipe, though its not much of a discount' in soap a little extra oil not accounted for can change your entire end soap outcome.

 

[TheGecko]

…if you're fine with being trapped within the gamut of the CMYK colour space.

Why would I be trapped? CMYK or RBG is the bases for all colors...by mixing different amounts of red and blue, I can have a hundred different shades of purple. Add in some white or black, I can create even more shades of colors.

 

[Susie]

I'm glad you have the ability and the willingness to mix all those colors. For someone with tritanopia, I have to get second opinions on what a color actually is. Matching colors or mixing them is out of the question unless someone is there to help.

 

[John Harris]

Why would I be trapped? CMYK or RBG is the bases for all colors...by mixing different amounts of red and blue, I can have a hundred different shades of purple. Add in some white or black, I can create even more shades of colors.

September Color Challenge!
How would you mix up khaki?

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Why would I be trapped? CMYK or RBG is the bases for all colors...by mixing different amounts of red and blue, I can have a hundred different shades of purple. Add in some white or black, I can create even more shades of colors.

Yes and no. You can reach all colours that are accessible from the maximum pure CMYK base clours, but e. g. no pure spectral colours. Look at the CIE chromaticity “sail”:

All possible colours are between the spectral bow and the purple line at the bottom. These accessible by mixing C, M, Y and K are the ones inside the skew purple pentagon, one cannot escape it by blending CMYK. It still has infinitely many hues, but by far not all colours that humans (with normal eye sight) can perceive. Various RGB colour spaces are better (especially with bright greens), but there is still no way to create the most pure and intense bluish-green hues (500…520 nm) and most vibrant violets with subtractive colour blending. You have to resort to prisms/gratings to separate from white light, or fluorescence.

September Color Challenge!
How would you mix up khaki?

Oof, that's a hard one. Wait, I think I have a recipe somewhere, … hrm, looks rather complicated, I don't think it's appropriate to divert further off-topic with it.

On a serious note, CMYK (or even better: CMY without black) would indeed make a great SMF monthly challenge, FWIW. If only to push the limits of colour blending comfort zone.

 

[Carly B]

September Color Challenge!
How would you mix up khaki?

I'd probably use green, black, and yellow.

 

[dibbles]

September Color Challenge!
How would you mix up khaki?

Mix all the colors until I got mud, and add TD. A lot of TD.

 

[Bubble Agent]

I am sorry if this is very off topic, but I had a lot of mica samples that were too small to use in anything, it was about 20 samples in total, all from Nurture soap and the same ammount as I had used exactly one teaspoon from each bag to test in soaps to decide my cprs colors.

Instead of throwing them all out I emptied all of them in one sample bag. The colors were different greens, reds, yellow, teal, grey, pinks, 1 silver (sparkly) and blues. It ended up being about a half a teaspoon all in all.
I smooooshed them together to get everything blended really well, and swatched it.
It turned out to be a dirty grey/brown color. It would be an ok eyeshadow ( if you like to go for a muddled color..ahem)
But I added it to soap instead, cause, you know SOAP!
Well... the batter made a dirty grey/brown soap that looked rather...icky
Thankfully it was only two small bars.

I think without a doubt it was probably the uggliest soap I have ever made. I really wish I had taken pictures of it, but just use your imagination and you`ll probably be very accurate...

Ps. If you have a bright yellow and mix in activated charcoal and blend together the color becomes quite kaki-like, even witout green. (Ask me how I know...)

 

[TheGecko]

September Color Challenge!How would you mix up khaki?

Khaki is a brownish-yellow color. So start with making a brown color (yellow + blue = green + red), add a little more yellow, then a tad bit of black to muddy it up.

ETA - My first husband was a printer and mixed a lot of custom inks.

 

[John Harris]

So start with making a brown color (yellow + blue = green + red)

I don't understand what you mean by that.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Lucky you never had a watercolour paint box in school?

 

[Carly B]

I don't understand what you mean by that.

On a color wheel, red is opposite green, yellow is opposite purple, and blue is opposite orange.

They are called complimentary colors because when they are next to each other, they look brighter. But if you mix them, which is in essence mixing all 3 primary colors, (since green is actually blue and yellow, for example, so if you add red you have all 3 primary colors in the mix), you get a sludgy brownish color, which you can lighted up with white to get your khaki.

 

[TheGecko]

Yes and no. You can reach all colours that are accessible from the maximum pure CMYK base clours, but e. g. no pure spectral colours.

Sorry, but that's all my poor little brain could process. LOL

I get what you are saying, but we're talking about colorants for making soap and keeping it simple WITHOUT having to purchase 50 shades of grey. My point was and still is...you don't even need to buy Grey Mica (much less 50 shades) when you can use Black and White Mica or Black Oxide (or A/C) and TD. But I also understand that the average soap maker isn't going to be able to replicate 'neons' because of its completely synthetic nature, but then again...do you really need to buy Neon Deep Orange, Neon Orange, Neon Orange Yellow and Neon Red Orange or can you achieve those same shades with Neon Red and Neon Yellow?

Soap making is a huge rabbit hole...I know this because I just counted and I have 85 FOs and 51 colorants (that's just the jars, there is another dozen or so bags sitting in a shoe box in my soaping cart). In my defense, the majority of these were purchased during the first year when I really didn't know what direction I was going in...hence why I also have a bunch of molds that I need to get rid of. But as I have gotten more settled in my soap making and having picked a direction, I find that I don't need a crap load of scents and colorants.

 

[TheGecko]

I don't understand what you mean by that.

If you mix green and red, you get brown. To get green, you mix blue and yellow. I could have said just mix yellow, red and blue to get brown and then add a little more yellow, but it's a good idea to learn the basics and then go from there.

 

[earlene]

I use them all, but mostly micas, plus TD, which is, after all an oxide, as well as some natural and non-traditional colorants for the fun of it. Really, it's all so much fun!

If you look at the ingredient list for micas, you may notice that many of them do actually include oxides and/or ultramarines in the mix.

The ones I don't have to use are Lakes, which I've only used once when I took one of my soapmaking classes. I'd like to make a purchase and experiment with them one of these days. But I already have so many colorants, I don't know when I'll get around to that.