Can Prang tempura powder be used in melt & pour soap making or cold process soap making?

[Ephemerella]

I saw 'tempura' then some mention of something edible, so I was thinking something like panko crumbs, which confused me to begin with, thinking panko crumbs??? in soap????

Then I started seeing reference to crayons, various colorants & then noticed the different spelling in a few different posts....and finally caught on

I just figured that if I was confused, someone else might be as well

Count me in the confused camp. I was like lord have mercy now what are we adding to our soap?!?

 

[akseattle]

In April, I asked if anyone had ever used Prang's tempera powder to color their soap. I had found 4 one pound containers of it in my storage.
Some soapers had used crayons to color their soap but it had faded over time. I went ahead and used the tempera. It looked perfect to me (except that I was going for hot pink when I used the red tempera with diamond white mica).
I wrapped two of the soaps (one of the green and one of the orange) and thought I'd see how well the color held up over time.
The green and yellow are colored with Prang’s green tempera and Prang’s yellow tempera.
The orange is Prang’s red tempera with Ceya’s Diamond White mica.
It's been 3 months. As far as I can tell, by comparing to the photos I took in April, they haven't faded.

Out of curiosity, I got some Prang's liquid tempera at the hobby store. I mixed red with white and a drop of orange. In the spoon, it was a beautiful Barbie pink. When I mixed it into my clear melt and pour base, it turned into a muddier pink. It also gave the soap a jelly like quality. I think it was too much liquid for the amount of M&P I was using. I left that dirtyish pink, jellyish soap just sitting there in a little block these last couple months. Today I made a bar of soap and used it for just a narrow 1/8 " layer. Some of the excess liquid most have evaporated off in the heating process because it feels fine on the soap. I even feel like I can hang with the color... So, i'm glad I didn't throw away that experiment!

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Interesting! Thanks for sharing!

 

[akseattle]

I tossed these Melt & Pour soaps I made on April 24, 2023 ( so 1.5 years ago) using Prang Tempera in a box where I toss other soap ends. I had wondered if Prang Tempera, like kids use to paint with in school, can be used to color soap. The white color is white soap base. The green and the yellow are Prang Tempera and the orange is red tempera with a little diamond white mica by Ceya. The green, yellow and white bar looks pretty much as it did when I made it. The top is a little rough, like it was trying to get glycerin dew. The orange, yellow and white bar doesn't look so great. The red tempera bleeds and has completely turned the yellow orange. The white is now a pale shade of orange. I had saved these to see what changes there might be in the color. I'm going to start using these to see if I have a reaction to the tempera.

 

[Humblegoat]

I don’t know if this will be helpful to you or not @akseattle. I started researching color theory because I didn’t want to invest a ton of money in multiple Mica powders for different colors. So my initial thought was the typical primary colors red, yellow & blue. However I discovered that the “real” primary colors are magenta, cyan & yellow. These are the colors our eyes see. I had an epiphany, ohhh those are the ink colors in a printer. So I purchased those as well as white and black. I’m studying color wheels and reading more. My colors are getting better (I think) and seem to be staying truer and not fading as much. It is experimenting for sure, hope I’m not just drinking the koolaid.