green colorant for CP

[houseofwool]

Wheat grass will fade in sunlight, but otherwise is stable.

 

[kryse13]

I found that the blue food coloring starts out a pretty but light purple which gradually turns darker pretty purple over a 4wk cure.

And that pink eventually fades to peach when in use. And that green turns brown.

I like comfrey powder or nettle powder infused in dark green olive oil for a nice olive green. Haven't tried any sort of bright green yet. But looking at all these suggestions with interest to think about some xmas themed soaps.

A light green is sutable, so if I infuse nettle in olive oil it will keep a green color, not turn brown?

 

[kryse13]

So I tried some old makeup and it went well, however i didn't use enough I guess cuz its still white maybe a green tint. Maybe I should have gelled it? I prevented gel and put it outside (-8 c). I don't know how bad I screwed up the swirl but I really want to cut it right now and it sucks to wait! Ahhhhrrrrrgggggg

 

[Obsidian]

The swirls are nice, even if you didn't get the color you wanted. I don't know if gelling would have made that much of a difference. When I use eyeshadow, I keep adding it until I get the color I want.

 

[kryse13]

Ok so the green turned out the way I wanted somehow? It may lighten now that I cut it. Was very soft and still zaps. I didn't mix till trace before I put in my colors so that may be why? I wanted to do it at light trace but I forgot...

The swirl looks like a blob but I expected that to happen with my first try.

 

[Obsidian]

It doesn't really matter when you add your color, it doesn't affect how long saponification takes. I made a batch today and added the colors to my oils so I could make sure I had a chance to really get them mixed in.
I suspect your soap didn't gel so it can take 2-3 days before saponification is complete and it stops being zappy.

Colors can do some weird things. I had one batch turn bright neon orange when I mixed in the lye but the finished bars are a butterscotch like shade.

 

[kryse13]

ok so this is the pix to my experiment. apparently I sucked at the swirl inside, but I knew I need to practice before I can get that right. The color in the soap from my old eye shadow worked perfect. Mixed it in with a little oil and later threw in some dry eye shadow and stick blended it because I didn't pre mix enough for the color I wanted. The color is exactly what I wanted for the green, however not the same for the brown

Now to recreate this ... I guess I need to buy oxides or hoard my friends old eye shadow.

With the oxides what colors should I buy to mimic the same color I used in my soap? I believe I need a mixture. Or is there a natural way to get this kind of muted green from plant infusion?

 

[Ravenscourt Apothecary]

I only use natural colorants in my soap - and the best I've found so far is chlorella. It's a sea algae, and no it does not make for any odor in the final product. I've also used clays, and while French Pink clay worked great (it colored the soap a very pretty shade of strawberry smoothie), French Green clay only colored the batch a very delicate shade of green, and the final product has tiny green specks of it embedded in it. It looks nice, but not necessarily what I would have expected.
Tip: if you're coloring with clays, use a little bit of water to create a paste, then add it at trace the way you normally would. Makes mixing it in a lot easier and the color you end up with more even.
Here's my chlorella-colored soap:

 

[neeners]

i've used green clay, but that's more of an earthy green. I've also used chlorella b/c that was what I had in the kitchen, and it makes a really nice green colour!

 

[Lin]

I got a pretty muted green using celery herb. I wanted a stronger green, and wished I had bought more than just the one bottle. But it was really pretty. It did leave tiny green specs throughout the soap but I liked that, and I sprinkled more herb on the top to give more green.