How is this done?

[samirish]

Let me start by saying Ive been making soap for quite a few years so Im not new to the process. With that said, I do like to try others cp soap to see how mine compares.
Recently I bought a cp soap by a well known member from another soap forum. It was a bright purple and smelled great. It lathered great. What has got me confused is the suds produced by this soap were white. I dont mean regular white, like what is usual, but very very bright white. It almost looked like the suds you might see if maybe you were to overload your soap with titanium dioxide. Im sure that cant be the case since this soap was purple, and not a pastel purple but a very bright purple.
Can anyone explain how this can be? Do certain oils make for super white suds or do certain clays?
Inquiring minds want to know.....

Also, the only ingredients listed are coconut, palm, olive, shea, mica.

 

[cmzaha]

I would venture to say it was just the particular mica they used. You just need to try out different micas. Purple like blue is actually a whitening color. Bluing used to be used for whitening clothes and purple rinses are still used for whitening gray hair

 

[snappyllama]

This is going to come across as me being silly, but I swear I'm earnest... have you recently changed your light bulbs? DH put some newfangled one in the hall and everyone looks ghostly walking through there now. The whites really *pop* in a disconcerting way. It could also be that you're seeing a bluing effect from the purple that's making the whites look whiter.

 

[xraygrl]

Most likely it was pop mica. They produce very vibrant colors in soap. And even if it was purple, a few different colors are combined to produce the color you see.

 

[newbie]

And with micas, you can get vibrant colors without affecting the color of the lather, so even a highly colored bar can still produce white lather. Extra-white? That part has me stumped.