When it comes to personal care products, sometimes we get caught up more in the presentation than the usability and convenience of the product. Some guest bathrooms are spotless, with beautifully embroidered linen towels lined up on the counter, and multi-colored soapballs, polished and dry, sitting on a china plate at a safe distance from the sink. Such special touches are welcoming, but they can also scare people away from using anything for fear of ruining the effect. We want our skin-care products to be inviting and usable, not just for show.
Bright, multi-colored soaps are often more artful than useful. Avocado green, deep rose, and vibrant lavender soap colors are created in the chemist’s lab, and with these beautiful shades come the health risks of using synthetic chemicals. Synthetic dyes are used to color everything from food to cosmetics to medications, and yet too much of what is approved for safe use has not actually been proven to be so. They carry some very real carcinogenic risks. When it comes to coloring soap, my advice is to leave the test-tube neons to the painter’s palate, and allow the earth’s offerings to color your soaps naturally and safely.
Once you’ve gone to such extremes to ensure a pure product using only the finest materials, why compromise just to make your soaps look like everyone else’s. My advice is to use only the ingredients which add desired properties to your final bars, and to leave out those that are just for appearance’s sake.
Until the 1850s, only natural coloring was available for dyeing. For thousands of years, people relied upon vegetable, plant, and animal dyes, as well as mineral pigments. Then, in 1856, an Englishman accidentally produced a pale purple dye called mauve. Natural dyes have now been replaced almost entirely by these synthetic dyes. Coal tar, a by-product of the coal industry, is used to make synthetic dyes. We know these from our labels as D&C (drug and cosmetics) and F, D, and C colors (food, drug, and cosmetics).
The FDA limits the percentages of lead and arsenic allowable within these dyes, but many suspected carcinogens are not taken off the market. We, as consumers, are left to assess purity. This is a heavy responsibility, and one which I try to evaluate product by product. At the very least, I know that I can control what goes into my soaps.
Scale down your expectations for soap coloring, and you will be pleasantly surprised. Muted earth tones are not gray and dirty looking: The colors of Yosemite are quiet and natural, yet vibrant. Aim for this effect within your natural soaps.
Lye and coloring battle one another for control of the soap’s final appearance, and the lye wins. Milled soaps retain a richer color because the soap is flaked, dried, and stabilized before the dye is introduced. In cold-process soapmaking, the coloring is added right before pouring into the mold, while the soap is still active and caustic. Within this solution, the colors are altered and paled and rarely look anything like their original state. Go with the flow, and be ready to be surprised, knowing that your soaps will be unique and safe.
I have never used candle or other synthetic dyes, but I have had fun experimenting with natural alternatives. Vegetable dyes like beet juice, cherry juice, or blueberry juice, which I used successfully in creating lip balms, were a flop in the soap pan. What a dull, gray mess they made once introduced to the all-powerful lye. Ground spices are wonderful. They add scent, texture, and deep earth tones. Herbal infusions and decoctions rarely keep their original color, but usually create something interesting. Mineral pigments are effective, but this is one natural product I choose not to use. Other soapmakers swear by them, but I have safety concerns (see page 56). Caramel, cocoa, oatmeal, cornmeal, chlorophyll, carrot oil, annatto seed . . . we have many natural choices!
Ground spices are particularly fun to use for coloring, as they also add scent and texture. Powdered cinnamon is a favorite, but try cloves, nutmeg, and allspice as well. The soaps they produce are speckled and range anywhere from a caramel color to a dark chocolate. Curry powder and turmeric yield shades of yellow and peach, and I’m told that saffron does as well, though the cost keeps me from playing with it in soap. Cayenne pepper and paprika create beautiful, salmon-colored soaps. All of these are made even more interesting by marbling the color throughout the soap mixture, leaving swirls of color against a contrasting background.
Rather than adding the spice powder directly to the soap, which can result in clumping, first beat it into a small amount of the soap mixture or into a tablespoon of avocado or olive oil, and then add that mixture to the larger batch. Experiment with the desired degree of color, from 1 tablespoon (15 ml) of spice up to ¼ cup (59 ml). If you increase the amount up to ½ cup (118 ml) for a 12-pound (5.45 kg) batch of soap, you run the risk of spicy lathers and a heavy-duty cleanup job.
HERBS FOR DYEING SOAP
Lady’s Bedstraw (roots and flowers)
Alkanet (leaves and root)
Goldenrod (flowerheads)
Saffron (blossom)
Indigo (leaves)
Woad (blossoms)
Annatto Seed
Nettle (leaves)
Elderberry (leaves, berrries)
Yarrow (flowers)
You can make a concentrated herbal infusion using powdered or chopped leaves or flowers combined with mineral water. The amounts of each are variable, though I’d recommend starting by pouring 2½ cups (591 ml) of boiling water over 8 to 12 ounces (227 to 340 g) of plant material. Let the mixture steep for six to eight hours in a tightly covered glass container, then strain thoroughly. This preparation can be made up to a day in advance and stored in the refrigerator.
Making a decoction from roots and bark requires a more intense process that involves soaking and then simmering the plant’s tough parts. Begin by cutting or crushing the roots, bark, or seed into small pieces and soaking them in cold water for ten minutes. Pour the mixture into an enamel or glass saucepan and slowly bring it to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for ten to fifteen minutes, or until the mixture is reduced to about a quarter of its original volume. Cover tightly to prevent evaporation and allow to steep for five to ten minutes more, then strain thoroughly. Refrigerate until ready to use, no longer than twenty-four hours.
Use either the infusion or the decoction in place of an equal amount of water for dissolving the lye, but expect a less stable color than you’d achieve with a synthetic dye. Experiment, and enjoy the off-tones you achieve. None of the herbs listed in the box can be counted on to produce a particular color. Too many factors come into play: the combination of oils and fats, nutrients, and essential oils; the amount of sodium hydroxide used; and even which day of the week it is!
Olive oil, castor oil, palm oil, and wheatgerm oil, which enrich your soaps, will also provide a gentle tint. The essential oils of carrot, patchouli, vanilla absolute, and cassia bark, used primarily to scent soaps, add some coloring as well.
A variety of plant extracts can also be used to color and enrich soap, but since they aren’t all oil-based, each extract must be researched individually. Ask for oil-soluble extracts, and do not use the water-soluble extracts which incorporate propylene glycol. You should also research the method of extraction used to avoid unwanted synthetics. Annatto extract, grapeskin extract, and beet root extract offer shades of red (and other surprise colors depending upon the soap formulation), but be sure to order the pure oil-soluble extracts.
Vegetable compounds produce some natural colors. Liquid chlorophyll tints soaps a natural, pale shade of green. Caramel, a gently burnt sugar, offers warm earth tones. I’ve heard that hydrated tomato colors soap a shade of red, although I haven’t tried it myself.
In coloring, remember that part of the soap’s beauty is its unadulterated makeup.
Minerals mined from the earth are called inorganic because they were never alive. Most minerals form within extremely hot liquids deep inside the earth. As the liquids cool, some of the atoms bond together to form crystals. Over time, more and more layers of atoms attach themselves to this unit, forming ever-growing crystals.
Minerals are among the first substances used by humans, but their use in soapmaking concerns me. Though many cosmetic manufacturers, including the natural companies, use mineral pigments, I am not convinced of their safety.
Mica, shale, pumice, ochres, titanium dioxide, iron oxides, and ultramarine seem to be used safely by many reputable soapmakers. Just be on the alert to some of my concerns. Mica and pumice contain free silica, which, in excess, has led to respiratory diseases. Ochres (or ochers) — mixtures of sand, clay, and iron compounds like iron oxides — are thought to be safe unless the iron oxides are ingested. Titanium dioxide, another metal oxide, is also thought to be non-toxic, unless the titanium oxides are inhaled in massive amounts. Ultramarine should not be thought of as the genuine article of long ago derived from the gem lapis lazuli. Today it is made by heating a mixture of kaolin, sodium carbonate, sulphur, silica and resin to very high temperatures. Note that any of these minerals can cause skin irritation: The natural versions are filled with impurities, and the synthetic versions are exposed to some unfavorable catalysts.
Many soapmakers are using striking pearlescent pigments to decorate their soaps. Pearlescent pigments are microscopic, transparent layers of mica coated with titanium dioxide or iron oxide, and arranged in parallel layers. As light is absorbed and reflected through these layers, we see flashes of glitter and pearls, called pearlescence. The particular transparent colors we see are determined by the thickness of the titanium dioxide or iron oxide layers coating the mica. Iron oxide reflects the deeper bronze colors and titanium dioxide reflects the brighter earth colors.
Though natural titanium dioxide and iron oxide may be relatively safe, once the impurities have been removed, the particular forms of titanium dioxide and iron oxide used to make pearlescent pigments are created synthetically in the lab — the pure oxides are not as easily applied to the mica as the synthetic versions. Also, the strict rulings limit the use of the pure oxides within cosmetics. To achieve the brighter colors, synthetic colorants are added to many of the pearlescent pigment formulations.
Some companies sell a natural version of their synthetic pearlescence, using guanine crystals obtained from herring scales. Read safety data sheets carefully; guanine is often suspended in a highly synthetic base. If it is, this is not a natural alternative.
Many minerals have been found to be toxic only under conditions that soapmakers are unlikely to experience. We will not be inhaling or ingesting large quantities of these materials, and yet I don’t want to absorb anything through the skin that would be toxic to other systems. I just don’t feel comfortable with the depth of the research done, and to me, the benefits are not great enough to justify the potential hazards. I prefer to let the skin-care materials within the soap formula color the final bars ever so slightly with natural tones.
A long history does not make something safe. We have misused natural substances for thousands of years, and then claimed purity because of their longevity. People have always lightened, darkened, and colored their faces and bodies as fashion dictates. From ancient Egypt to modern America, we have paid more attention to the effect than the result. In the name of beauty, people have whitewashed their faces, adorned their bodies and faces with lead paints, and covered blemishes with toxic paints and dyes. Men and women in 18th century England wore make-up daily. The lead paints were toxic and left people looking old in their twenties. Some people died from lead poisoning.
My recommendation is to leave the mineral pigments for pottery and keep them away from our skin, which readily absorbs the good and the bad.
