Herbal Colorant Natural Colorant Tea

[JackieBlue78]

Today's experiment was to see how different herbal colorants work when you make a tea from them and then use the tea for your water for the lye solution.

Today, I used Madder Root. It's suggested that you can add this herb (also Indigo) to lye solution and then filter it out, so I figured if I used it as a tea, it would work!

I made a very strong tea. Like with the infusion, it was kinda orange/ brown but much darker, but the lye makes it rose/pink. And, in this case, kinda purple or wine colored. I am ecstatic with this experiment! It began to crack, so it's in freezer now. I can't wait to try another herb in a tea! I know indigo is always listed as one that can be added to lye, but now that I've seen how madder behaved, I will try one that's always suggested as an oil infusion.

I think you get a stronger smell of the herb from the tea though, so keep in mind if you try this, you will need more EOs/FOs.

I'm posting this because most times I've seen someone soap from a tea, it was actual tea, or coffee, and they were getting some shade of tan or brown.

I'll probably try Woad next.

JackieBlue78

 

[Lin19687]

There are a bunch of other thread on natural coloring. I may not last and I have not ever had the scent stay after cure
But it is a nice color purple

 

[Kari Howie]

Today's experiment was to see how different herbal colorants work when you make a tea from them and then use the tea for your water for the lye solution.

Today, I used Madder Root. It's suggested that you can add this herb (also Indigo) to lye solution and then filter it out, so I figured if I used it as a tea, it would work!

I made a very strong tea. Like with the infusion, it was kinda orange/ brown but much darker, but the lye makes it rose/pink. And, in this case, kinda purple or wine colored. I am ecstatic with this experiment! It began to crack, so it's in freezer now. I can't wait to try another herb in a tea! I know indigo is always listed as one that can be added to lye, but now that I've seen how madder behaved, I will try one that's always suggested as an oil infusion.

I think you get a stronger smell of the herb from the tea though, so keep in mind if you try this, you will need more EOs/FOs.

I'm posting this because most times I've seen someone soap from a tea, it was actual tea, or coffee, and they were getting some shade of tan or brown.

I'll probably try Woad next.

JackieBlue78

Great color!! I used a strong tea of chamomile recently in a CP soap.
It turned the lye a brownish color. I also added calendula petals and oatmeal, both of which I ground to a fine powder. The resulting soap ended up a soft, pretty yellow color.

 

[Dawni]

Nice color! I really hope it sticks... The only soap I made using madder root looks like meat haha

I look forward to your experiments

 

[JackieBlue78]

I think the fading is why I'm excited. This is darker than I want it to stay. If I can go darker to start, maybe they'll fade to what I want them to be? I've only ever used Madder Root stirred in or infused WITH Alkanet Root.

 

[Dawni]

I think the fading is why I'm excited. This is darker than I want it to stay. If I can go darker to start, maybe they'll fade to what I want them to be? I've only ever used Madder Root stirred in or infused WITH Alkanet Root.

I'm hoping my steak soap fades too hahaha

 

[JuliaNegusuk]

I use madder root tea quite a lot. I find generally it starts off as a deep raspberry pink when the soap batter is poured but this quickly settles down to a medium dusky pink colour. I don't notice it fading much after this, but I do tend to keep my soaps in a dark box until I use them. Then the pink soap can turn a bit muddy coloured towards the end of its life but generally keeps its colour through early use. Any smell won't last long enough to interfere with your EOs. I used to use the lye method but it is easier and less risky to strain out using the tea method. I use the lye method for calendula petals to get yellow colour but I leave them in.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

The red color in madder is from alizarin, which is pH sensitive. It has bluer tones at very high pH. As the soap pH drops the color tends to shift more towards a rose color and possibly with some warmer tones. I hope you will post pictures of the cut soap so we can see how it turns out. I tried a few different ways to coax different shades out of madder, which you can read about in this thread. At this point, I wouldn’t call any of them “tried and true” except the tea method, which I learned about from @JuliaNegusuk. I am not storing my soaps in the dark and I’m not seeing any noticeable fading in soaps that are months old.