Paprika & Turmeric

[Mobjack Bay]

After some frustrations using cold infusions for botanicals, I’ve recently been testing warm infusions made with coconut oil. For these soaps, infused oil made mid-February was used at 25% of the recipe. The darker soap has a little AC added. It’s interesting that the darkened turmeric soap looks a bit green (bar on right).


My results for indigo and matcha tea and more details about the method I used are here. Next up are gromwell and rhubarb. If I can get good results with those colorants using this method, I will do a happy dance.

 

[AliOop]

Beautiful! Can't wait to see the next ones.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I’ve recently been testing warm infusions made with coconut oil.

To get a feel for warm infusions you may want to give MIY Carrot Tissue Oil a try. That's the "quick (relatively) & easy" way I do herbal infusions these days. The carrot is fresh in that recipe but the technique works with dried herbs as well. I use 1 oz dried herbs in 20 oz. oil with a long shelf life like olive and HO sunflower.

One of these days I hope to try infusing in coconut oil to compare.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

A warm infusion done in a crockpot is almost effortless and it doesn’t take much heat to keep the water bath and infusions warm for hours. I decided to use CO because I don’t like the idea of liquid oil infusions sitting around on the shelf potentially going rancid because I forgot about them.

 

[dibbles]

Beautiful

 

[AliOop]

@Mobjack Bay may I ask where you purchase your gromwell and rhubarb? I have found some on Amazon but that's never my first choice for soap ingredients.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Thanks @AliOop and @dibbles ❤

I bought my rhubarb and gromwell on Amazon, both as powders. The rhubarb, which is not Himilayan, makes a nice pink using cold infusions, but I have not gotten the color intensity I’ve seen others get with the Himilayan species. That’s one reason I wanted to try a warm infusion. Maybe it’s the species, or maybe it’s my method. I want to rule method out before I buy more rhubarb. The gromwell was pricey and so far the color I’m getting is mostly grey and nothing like the beautiful color @Vicki C gets from her infusions. It actually has started out looking blue, but then morphs which makes me think the infusion isn’t strong enough. I’m not ready to doubt the company because after my first gromwell order went missing in transit they sent me a replacement right away along with a little bag of roots that I haven’t tried yet.

links:
Rhubarb Amazon.com

Gromwell https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LZNJVCA/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_Q4BN78EDXQC9PZ4F0QBY?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1