Soap dough embeds

[Amonik]

I just made some soap dough, and am itching to try it for embeds. The plan is to roll ”sticks” out of the dough and lay them lengthwise in my loaf mould, pour a base colour and get spotted soap when I cut the bars. I have some questions for the forum, because I’ve never moved beyond simple swirls for decoration.

A) do the embeds and the base colour need to be the same recipe?

B) can I add more fragrance than usual to the base colour to compensate for the fact that the dough is unscented? I.e. If the total is 1000g of oils, but 300g is the unscented dough, do I measure out scent for 1000g or 700g?

C) What is a good ratio of embeds to base, to get a soap that sticks together?

D) My dough is coloured with spices, do they typically bleed into the uncoloured parts? One each has paprika and cocoa powder, and two have turmeric. I’m planning to make an uncoloured lard based base (or background) which will hopefully be nice and white.

 

[jcandleattic]

A) do the embeds and the base colour need to be the same recipe?

No, they don't need to be.

B) can I add more fragrance than usual to the base colour to compensate for the fact that the dough is unscented? I.e. If the total is 1000g of oils, but 300g is the unscented dough, do I measure out scent for 1000g or 700g?

As long as you are within the limits of the safe usage rate, yes, you can add more to compensate for the unscented portioin

C) What is a good ratio of embeds to base, to get a soap that sticks together?

?? Not sure I understand this question. There should be no problems with the embeds adhering to the soap batter especially if it's going to be embedded inside the soap, and not as an embed on top.

D) My dough is coloured with spices, do they typically bleed into the uncoloured parts? One each has paprika and cocoa powder, and two have turmeric. I’m planning to make an uncoloured lard based base (or background) which will hopefully be nice and white.

Unfortunately I can't answer this as I only use micas/oxides to color my soap, and not usually natural colorants. Hopefully someone else can come by and answer this for you.

 

[glendam]

A) do the embeds and the base colour need to be the same recipe?
No, but you if your soap dough recipe has more fluid oils, you may notice it wears off faster, not sure if it is very noticeable initially though, but it is not a big difference.

B) can I add more fragrance than usual to the base colour to compensate for the fact that the dough is unscented? I.e. If the total is 1000g of oils, but 300g is the unscented dough, do I measure out scent for 1000g or 700g?
I would measure the scent for 700g

C) What is a good ratio of embeds to base, to get a soap that sticks together?
Not sure, but I keep my embeds wrapped in plastic so that they are moist and stick well to the wet soap, and it is not hard to cut the soap.

D) My dough is coloured with spices, do they typically bleed into the uncoloured parts? One each has paprika and cocoa powder, and two have turmeric. I’m planning to make an uncoloured lard based base (or background) which will hopefully be nice and white.
Not sure, I have noticed that my paprika colored soap dough was very staining in my fingers, but I had used too much.
Have fun!

 

[earlene]

Regarding migration of some colorants out of the embeds. Some colorants do migrate, as do some discoloring fragrances. Some happens while the soap is still young. Some progresses with time as the soap ages, due to the chemical interactions that continue throughout the life of the soap.

I cannot say for sure what paprika, cocoa powder and turmeric do as regards to color migration, however. Even though I have used the latter two, I don't recall color migration while I still had that soap.

 

[Amonik]

Thanks everyone! Now, to find the time...

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Any colorant that is water or oil soluble (like a dye, or plant or seed color that is “pulled” out into an oil infusion, water or tincture) has the potential to migrate in the soap due to the soap’s super fat, glycerin and water content. Cocoa powder should stay put. If you added paprika and turmeric as powders, migration of colors should be very slow. If you made the soap dough with infused paprika and turmeric oils, the migration could be faster.

 

[Dawni]

Any colorant that is water or oil soluble (like a dye, or plant or seed color that is “pulled” out into an oil infusion, water or tincture) has the potential to migrate in the soap due to the soap’s super fat, glycerin and water content.

Good to know. Thanks for that! I learned something new today.

 

[shunt2011]

I've use cocoa powder and it's never migrated. Don't know about the others.

 

[Amonik]

Thank you so much everyone! I’m melting the fats for the background soap right now - 90% lard, 10% coconut. If the kids fall asleep before me I’ll make soap tonight

 

[Nanette]

No, they don't need to be.

As long as you are within the limits of the safe usage rate, yes, you can add more to compensate for the unscented portioin

?? Not sure I understand this question. There should be no problems with the embeds adhering to the soap batter especially if it's going to be embedded inside the soap, and not as an embed on top.


Unfortunately I can't answer this as I only use micas/oxides to color my soap, and not usually natural colorants. Hopefully someone else can come by and answer this for you.

I have used annatto gold embeds in a white soap.....after the putting to bed stage the next morning the entire soap was a very pale yellow, no embeds to be seen except the ones sticking out of the top-shape only, no color....this is just one color infusion tho and soap gelled. Aha Mobjack just explained it.

 

[Amonik]

I’m always impatient about cutting, so here it is! 11 hours after pouring. I used 500g soap dough and forgot to measure how much of the base colour. The scent seems faint. I used Devilgate (a dupe of Lush Hellstone), from uk company SilkMagik oils, at 3% in only the base colour. Only ever used EOs before, so I don’t really know how to handle fragrance oils.

Thanks everyone for your help in this!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Nicely done! I hope the colors stay put for you. I think I need to learn how to make soap dough!

 

[Amonik]

Nicely done! I hope the colors stay put for you. I think I need to learn how to make soap dough!

It was surprisingly easy!

 

[MGM]

It was surprisingly easy!

You're inspiring me, @Amonik ! Do you mind sharing your soap dough recipe?
Please keep us updated about any migrating colour; I feel like, with your design, even a bit of migration out of the dough would create nice halos!