First CP attempt

[Goldsmith]

I'm getting ready to do my first CP batch of soap using a recipe that calls for Lard, coconut oil, canola oil, olive oil....
I would like the finished soap to be a light yet natural looking lavender color. just a little bit translucent with swirled in lavender buds...
Being a newbie I was wondering if someone could tell me the best way to achieve the color I'm after and also hopefully not turn the flower buds brown ?
Is there a colored clay that would work ? Just hoping to keep a very natural look

Thanks

 

[Lindy]

Congrats on taking that leap! The first batch is something you will always remember.

So, first off, the lavender buds are going to turn brown. Have you bought any soap colourants yet? LabColours are a good place to start. Remember - we love pictures.... :wink:

 

[ClaraSuds]

Lavender is a hard colour to achieve with naturals. The recommended natural for that is alkanet root, which most often turns grey. If that's the colour you want you'll be better off with a synthetic colour like the lab colours. Natural colourants like clay and spices will get you very muted colours in the range of orange, muted pinks, pale green and various browns. Of all the soaps I've made my favourite ones looks wise have been the bars I haven't coloured at all, but ymmv.

 

[Goldsmith]

Gee, guess I'll take a look at he lab colours
What could I mix in to give the soap the look of having something textury in it if the lavender flowers are going to turn brown ?
Can I still get a light lavender color with the lab colours and still have a subtle natural look ?
I'm open for anything at this point :shock:

Thanks

 

[ClaraSuds]

You can always mute a synthetic with a natural like a touch of pink clay. That will give you a more natural look. Unfortunately natural colourants are really variable in their results most often looking quite disappointing, they also morph over time. My rosehip coloured soaps started out a muted red but by the time they were cured they were chocolate brown. :cry: Clays and oxides tend to be quite stable and are cheap to buy. You can get cosmetic oxides at TKB Trading, pluot or manganese purple oxide in a very weak dilution with some pink clay will give you a natural look.

Most botanicals in soap will turn brown due to the lye in them. If you want to texture it without colour you could try salt, jojoba beads, bamboo grains, or finely ground white rice. Or you can just put up with brown stuff in your soap.

 

[LotusSoap]

You can infuse some of your oil with alkanet. It produces a nice purple color, depending on how you use it. I buy mine from Soap Making Resource. http://www.soap-making-resource.com/nat ... rants.html.

 

[Goldsmith]

OK and thanks !

 

[chicklet]

I've used alkanet twice and had totally different results both times. In the first batch, the alkanet was the only colorant I used and it came out green. A very pretty green, but defnitely green. In the second batch I also used some other colorants for a peacock swirl - annatto seed infusion, charcoal, pink clay, and black walnut powder. The alkanet in this batch turned a bluish purple. I read that the pH of the soap has something to do with how the alkanet ends up. My soap recipes were similar, but I did use alkanet alone in the first batch - not sure if that has anything to do with it or not. I will probably keep using alkanet, but only in batches where the color doesn't really matter.

 

[LotusSoap]

I get wonderful results with infusing it into olive oil then using the infused oil. I am very careful and consistent in the amounts I use to infuse and I get really pretty purple soap.

 

[Relle]

I used a mauve ultramarine to get this colour for lavender - viewtopic.php?f=16&t=26811

 

[Lindy]

I used a mauve ultramarine to get this colour for lavender - http://soapmakingforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=26811

Loving that!

 

[Stinkydancer]

Congrats on taking that leap! The first batch is something you will always remember.

So, first off, the lavender buds are going to turn brown. Have you bought any soap colourants yet? LabColours are a good place to start. Remember - we love pictures.... :wink:

Oh yeah, I remember mine 12 years later. LOL....I'm sure yours turned out better than mine.
I'm here to ask for pics too...love them.

 

[Lindy]

Surprisingly my first one was perfect! Mind you no colour or scent - just pure Castille....

 

[Cosmo]

Purple ultramarine with a titch of blue ultramarine makes a really nice purple.

 

[Stinkydancer]

Surprisingly my first one was perfect! Mind you no colour or scent - just pure Castille....

Which is what I should have done and advocate people do now. LOL Do as I say not as I do.

I used a Honeysuckle FO- why??? No idea...other than my aunt loves honeysuckle so I was thinking about giving her a bar at the time. Noone got a bar except the garbage. The recipe was probably fine since it was my gram's recipe which unbelievably checks out great lye wise in Soap Calc considering she has never to this day used a computer or a lye calc but you get the idea. It was the FO that gave me big trouble and I had no clue. LOL I had my gram's there and she wasn't understanding the seize. We molded the mess and it was the best Spam soap ever.
I have only ever HP'ed Honeysuckle after that.

 

[Seifenblasen]

The Soap Queen just had a thing about getting the right shade of purple, lots of photos:

http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body- ... ct-purple/

 

[Lindy]

I soap honeysuckle very cool, full water and take the soap to emulsification. Then add the FO and whisk it in to disperse it. Oh yeah and be ready to move fast....

 

[soap_rat]

1. For your very first batch of soap. I agree that keeping it plain and simple is the best! There is so much you're doing for the first time. Perhaps make your first batch plain, and if you want, scrape the pot into a paper cup (or save more than that) and experiment with colorant and/or scent once the main batch is in the mold.

2. I make lavender using alkanet. I'ts pretty consistent for me, although the first time I tried it my test bar was almost black-purple, then faded to medium lavender. That's never happened since, but it's why I'd recommend doing some tests of different amounts. The only time alkanet turned green on me was as a handy pH indicator for a HP batch that I'd really screwed up--it turned to purple once I got the pH to 9 or so.

I make blocks of medium lavender soap that I grate and add to uncolored soap--ooh, look, it's like lavender buds.