You learn something new everyday. English is not my mother language, too. And I was thinking about the Honeywell brand machine or other generics they put in the buildings, hospitals, hotels, offices. The thing you can control heat and also make it cooler. Maybe there's other name for it.
As for the easily available natural colorant, maybe algae or seaweed? But too much of these two smells like dead fish. ( never tried it, saw it on here) the blue, red and yellow...maybe try order ultramarine online? There's a recent thread named something ultramarine blue and it's very beautiful blue shades. You can add titanium dioxide to make lighter, so you got different shades of blue. Tomato purée / ketchup make red, depending how much you put it. But food additives can not be put too much, or it will grow mold. Calendula infused oil can be the yellow. And it's one of the few natural things won't turn brown in soap. ( cornflower, too ) lavender bud will turn brown, will look like mouse droppings. Rose petal will, too. Unless you stick the flower on top of the soap.
Other options are mica ( very colorful, won't bleed color out) , oxides ( never tried it. Try search it on forum) LAKES ( food grade LAKES can bleed color, some are NOT skin safe but food safe. Weird, huh?! ) ultramarine blue
Moss... I don't know will it be green or brown. Maybe search it on forum? There's a fun thing called lichen. I think might grow in your weather. Some lichen is used in perfume industry and is a irritant. I don't know how it will smell in soap.
www.jimbonham.com/blog/natural-colorants-used-in-soap-making/
He use lichen in soap. It's light pink beige. But other Google search are green. He said depend on type of lichen.
Thank you for all the great tips and tricks
I will try to find the thread about ultramarine. Because I really, really want that pigment. Maybe it's like citruses, they are food safe but not skin safe in too high concentrations, since they can give sun burns or something like that. Seaweed, yes, dead fish, have never thought about that. But it can very well be a dead fish smell.
Lichen, thank you so much for that! Wow, now I remembered something. There is one lichen we have here that grows everywhere. Especially on birch trees, and they are everywhere. Birch trees are actually covered in this grey lichen. But, that lichen is used to colour yarn, as a natural dye. And it will colour the yarn red. Bright red, if I don't remember wrong. So that one can for sure be used as a colourant. But if it's skin safe, hmm, that should be possible to find out somewhere. I don't know what this lichen is called. But we have other lichens too, many different kinds, and they are everywhere, tons and tons of them.
I have also thought about henna. But henna will stain your hands, I think. But lets say if you colour something with henna first, like silk or wool or something, rinse it off, and use that coloured fiber in the soap. Maybe that will work. Henna is for sure something that can give strong colours.
Now I found a video (in Norwegian) about a lichen (Ochrolechia tartarea (L.) Massal). That is used to dye yarn. And to check if it is the right lichen, you can just take a Q-tip with bleach and smear it on the lichen. If it changes colour to pink, red, purpur (I don't remember exactly), it is the right kind of lichen. And to extract the colour from the lichen, they dried it, ground it up in a mortar, and then added Salmiakk (an alkali solution) to the mixture. It had to sit there for a while. I did not really understand the procedure, but I will find out another place. Instead of Salmiakk, I am sure lye solution can be used. I don't even know if Salmiakk is only something norwegian that no one understand what is, or if it is available in all countries. But Salmiakk (ammonia) is a household cleaner, a very strong one, that is very alkaline. So it Salmiakk and vinegar is used in natural dyes, Salmiakk for alkali and vinegar for acidic. But I guess it's just for convenience, lye can be used instead. I don't think it matters, and maybe Salmiakk is not safe in soaps.
I know of a lichen and a procedure to make a strong blue colour. That can maybe be an alternative to ultramarine. I came across that a while ago on a Norwegian site. And I sent that to a woman in Finland, that does a lot of natural dye. She has tried almost every plant, but this lichen that makes blue is very unknown. I will try to find it again an post it here. If it does work for yarn, it should work also for soap. This lichen is called "messinglav" in Norwegian and Xanthoria parietina in latin. While trying to research when writing here, I found that this lichen also gives a strong yellow colour. So I guess it can be both blue or yellow, depending on what you add to it.
Another thing that is used in natural dyes are a mordant called alun. I think alun is safe and non-toxic, and it is a mineral of some sort. That will enhance colours, deepen and brighen them, and make them stick to the yarn. Lightfast and non-fading. That substance is maybe a good idea to use in soaps as well, when natural dyes are used as colourants.
I found the article about messinglav (xanthoria). It is written in Norwegian, and that crappy Google Translate would not tranlate it because the file was too big. I tried Russian Yandex Translator, it did translate something, but only to page 5. But, it should be possible to cut out the text from page 28 to 32 and paste it in Google Translate. Here is the link, and the article is called "Blått fra lav" (blue from lichen), and starts on page 28:
http://www.soppognyttevekster.no/media/1079/sopp-og-nyttevekster-3-2005.pdf
