Can I Add Annatto Infusion at Trace and Still Get a Decent Colour?

[Noodge]

Please bear with my garbled question, I've not had my coffee yet but wanted to ask the question before I forget

I've finally got some annatto seeds, and I have a buttery-yellow swirl planned for my next soap

My question - if I added some infused olive oil to a portion of my batter (discounting the amount of olive oil in my recipe to compensate) would I be able to get a meaningful colour?

How much would I need to add for a buttery yellow? My go-to recipe is 60% olive, so if needed, I could in theory do the following:

Measure out my oils (sans olive) and lye, and just combine to emulsion. I would then split my (very lye heavy) batter in half.

To one, I could add plain olive oil to make up the weight, to the other, my annatto infused olive oil, and then continue to blend each separately to trace.

This should be fine, right? Or at 60% infused oil would I get carrot orange instead? Cause for the design I have in mind, that is NOT what I'm going for haha

Thanks in advance all

 

[atiz]

In my experience 15-20% already gives a fairly substantial yellow color. For light buttery yellow you could try 10% maybe. But it also depends on how strong your infusion is, and the color has always faded for me over time.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

It may be a bit of trial and error to get the shade you’re hoping for. My first run with annatto infused oil produced intensely orange soaps using 20% of infused oils for the OO in a 100% OO soap. Seven months later they are still intense orange. I wanted a buttery color, so the next time I used annatto, I used a concentrated infusion and added it a little at a time until I got the color I wanted in the batter. My strategy was to start with a low SF knowing that I would be adding oil. If you are splitting the batter, you can then add the same amount of uninfused OO to the other portion to get them to the same SF. If you try it this way, it helps to know how much oil equals a percentage of SF in your recipe. For 100% OO, I know it takes about 10 g of oil for each additional 1% of SF for a given amount of NaOH in a recipe that starts with 1000 g of oil. Starting at 2% SF and knowing that a US tablespoon of OO weighs 13-14 g, adding 1 TBSP of oil brings my SF up to between 3% and 4%. Once you know how much of your annatto infused oil it takes to get the color you want, you can go back to adding it to the oils when you weigh them.

 

[amd]

Personally, I would not do it this way if you are only wanting to swirl the yellow color into a portion of the soap. Why add more calculations to the process?
What I would do (and have done) is create a strong infusion in 1 TBSP of oil and add to the part you want to color. I suppose depending on the size of your batch it may slightly affect the SF, but it shouldn't be a significant amount to worry about.
When I create my annatto infusion, I microwave 1 tsp annatto in 1 tbsp oil in 30 second burst (about 1-1/2 mins total), strain and add to my soap.
Here's two soaps I've made with annatto, the first I added the infusion to the portion I swirled together (I think only infused for 1 min), the second I added to all of the soap to get one color. ETA: the second soap is a honey soap, that may also be why the color is a bit richer.

 

[Kcryss]

Here's two soaps I've made with annatto, the first I added the infusion to the portion I swirled together (I think only infused for 1 min), the second I added to all of the soap to get one color. ETA: the second soap is a honey soap, that may also be why the color is a bit richer.
View attachment 44134View attachment 44135

Wow! I love the color yellow that you were able to obtain. 1 tsp annatto seed infused in 1 tbs oil and microwaved at 30 seconds intervals for 1 minute? I'm trying this one for sure!

 

[amd]

I love the color yellow that you were able to obtain.

Surprisingly the color has not faded much - I made these last June, and they're still a lovely yellow, a bit lighter but not faded like I expected.

 

[Kcryss]

Surprisingly the color has not faded much - I made these last June, and they're still a lovely yellow, a bit lighter but not faded like I expected.

That's great to hear. Such a beautiful yellow! Nice job.

 

[Dawni]

Short answer: yes lol

The more experienced CP soapers have answered with detail but here's the color I got in CP with 1.5 teaspoon annatto infusion added to part the batter at trace. I'll have to search to tell you but I think my infusion was 1:3 seeds to oil. My total batch was a bit more than 700g I think. I formulated with low superfat to begin with to account for the additional oil from the infusions (not all were in oil though). It isn't perfect soap but just to show you the color........

My yellow in that soap hasn't faded much either though I haven't used it much in CP. I love annatto in HP.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

And, what everyone is also saying here is that it doesn’t take much annatto to color your batter. We’re measuring in teaspoons, not 100s of grams because annatto is a particularly potent natural colorant. As someone who has been making soap for less than a year, I still try to keep careful track of details. I feel it increases my chances of reproducing my results if it turns out that I like the soap. Plus, if the soap later develops DOS, I will also know some of the key details, like how much it was SF’d and how much colorant I added.

 

[szaza]

Wow I didn't know there were so many ways to add an infusion to soap! When I use infusions to do a multicolor soap I do it the way @Noodge described. My recipe will come to trace quickly when I leave out part of the infusion, but once the batter is split and infusions are added it goes back to emulsion. I usually use my infusions in the 15-20% range and my infusions are 1:15 plantil. (Edit: haha this was supposed to be plant : oil)
I do think that for this soap, @amd 's method is more practical, since it doesn't require much calculating.
I do want to add that I've recently tried Annatto at 5% in hopes of getting a soft yellow, but I got a very fresh and bright yellow color (picture here), so annatto might not be the right colorant for the job.

In july I made a soap with decreasing amounts of annatto infusion (75-50-33-22-15-10%) in the picture below you see the results.

The soap in front was gelled (cpop), the soap in the back was a confetti soap with the leftover batter with annatto at 10% and didn't go through gel phase. (Sorry for the bad pic)
The soap that went through gel phase lost a lot of its color, while the non-gel confetti soap has kept its color quite well as you can see below

(Not sure if this is the info you were looking for, but I hope it helps)

 

[Mobjack Bay]

My infusion is 1 oz powder in 9 oz OO. Here’s a video by Holly at Kapia Mera where she adds her annatto infused oil to the soap at emulsion, which is mostly how I’ve seen her added colorants. She mentions in replies to comments that she doesn’t correct for added oil unless it’s more than 2 tsp for her batch.

 

[Adobehead]

Wow, what great photos, now I am inspired to use Anatto, going to look for some. Thanks for sharing, all.
Laurel