The Color Purple

[SoapSap]

I have tried several times in different formulas to color soap batter with violet oxide and purple oxide. It always comes out a merky grayish or brownish color. I have heard this is a difficult color to manage.

Is there another purple colorant that would work well. I do see pictures of other soap-makers soap that has a true purple - so I know there is a way.

Thanks much.

 

[Obsidian]

The darker purple was made with http://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com/products/neon-bunch-berry-purple-dye-powder.aspx and the lighter was made with http://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com/products/matte-lavender-ultramarine-powder.aspx I really like the matte lavender, looks better in person.

 

[shunt2011]

These are all nurture soap supplies purple vibrance mica. Just different amounts

 

[Meganmischke]

The vibrance micas are great for me. I think you need more if you are getting greys. Whitening your batch a tad my help with lavender but not dark purple. Purple practice makes perfect.

 

[Lindy]

I make one using FD&C Red & RD&C Blue.

 

[IrishLass]

As Meganmischke said, "Purple practice makes perfect."

If you are getting washed-out gray with your purple/violet colorant, you need to add more of it, and/or add a little TD to your soap base to neutralize the natural color of your soaping oils first, or you can also mix the colorant with something like activated charcoal to deepen it.

My main go-to colorant for purple is Ultramarine Violet, which many say they have difficultly getting a good purple from, but with a little practice with a bit of a heavy hand, one can get lovely shades of purple with it- from deep purple to a light shade of lavender.

The first soap pic below was swirled with 1/4 tsp. Ultramarine Violet mixed with 1/32 tsp activated charcoal to deepen it, which was then added to 1/3 cup soap batter to swirl with:

To color a whole entire 1 lb batch with the above shade of purple (i.e., not just a swirl, but coloring the whole batch), I would need to use something like 1.5 to 2 tsp. of UM Violet + about 1/4 tsp of activated charcoal ppo.

Pictured below is a purple swirl that I made by mixing 2 different colorants together: 1/4 tsp Brambleberry's Fired Up Fushchia + 1/4 tsp Brambleberry's Ultraviolet Blue, which was added to 1 cup of soap batter that was 'neutralized' color-wise with a little TD first (in some parts of the soap you can see that I didn't exactly mix the Fuschia in as well as I thought:

IrishLass

 

[SoapSap]

Thanks for your replies. This information helps a lot and seeing your the photos of your beautiful soap is inspiring.

 

[dixiedragon]

FD&C Blue. This is a VERY CONCENTRATED dye. Cover your work space with newspaper - a tiny crumb makes a LOT of blue! Dissolve it in water and add it a bit at a time to the batter. It appears gray at first, but purples over night.

 

[sagehill]

I have tried several times in different formulas to color soap batter with violet oxide and purple oxide. It always comes out a merky grayish or brownish color. I have heard this is a difficult color to manage.

Is there another purple colorant that would work well. I do see pictures of other soap-makers soap that has a true purple - so I know there is a way.

Try UM violet with UM blue. From my files:

For about 1/3-1/2 lbs of oils, so adjust if your recipe makes more:
4 dash ultramarine violet oxide
1 smidgen ultramarine blue oxide

If you mix these colorants in a little baggy and add some of the oil from your formula, you can smoosh it really well and the colors will be smooth and not speckled in the soap. Then when you are ready to add it to a portion of your soap, snip the corner and squeeze it into the cup you want to color.

Double amount to color the entire batch of 1 lb oils. If you think it's too blue, or not purple enough or dark enough, just add more violet oxide to the baggy. It has to be darker than you want in order for it to come to the darkness you want in the soap in the end. If all else fails, you can add a few speckles of black oxide to it, but it is easy to get too much black and end up with gray instead, so I like to just use enough violet to get what I want.

 

[PrairieLights]

Ooooooooooooooooooooo! Prettyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Relle]

This has a liquid colour violet with charcoal in it.