Colorant questions for shampoo and conditioner bars

[Mobjack Bay]

I’m trying to decide if I should buy new colorants for coloring the shampoo and conditioner bar bases I’m experimenting with. I’ve seen shampoo bars with micas and oxides which is what I used for my first round of testing. Getting the oxides evenly dispersed was a little bit of a challenge, but I can get past that. The ingredient lists for the Lush bars I looked at include numbered dye or lake colors. Nurture sells lakes in powder form for mixing with oil and dyes that are mixed with water, but I don’t know how hard it would be to mix them. If you use colorants for shampoo or conditioner bars and you don’t mind sharing, what kind do you use, is there a brand you prefer and, if in the US, where do you get it?

 

[AliOop]

I typically use my regular soaping micas, mostly from Nurture but some from Brambleberry and Mad Micas. The few lakes that I've tried have also worked well. My process is to mix the powdered colorant with the dry ingredients. Doing that before adding the liquids helps me to see whether mixture is homogenous. Both the micas and the lakes mixed in easily.

Since you are adding a bit of oil to your premade base, could you mix the lakes in that first, and then add it to the melted base?

No advice on the dyes, sorry. I do have some liquid dyes that were part of a destash from a local soaper. She told me what they were, but they don't have ingredient labels, so I can't bring myself to use them on my hair.

 

[cerelife]

I haven't started playing with my Syndopour and conditioner bases yet, but I did notice on both Katie and Ruth's videos that the mica settled instead of fully dispersing.
I'm thinking about trying WSP's stained glass liquid colorants. I used them years ago in CP and they were pretty decent and easy to work with, and since they're geared more toward MP I feel like they will give a more even dispersion of color. It will be a couple of weeks before I get a chance to try them out, but I'll let you know.
https://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com/soap-cosmetic-colorants/dye-lake-neon/liquids.aspx