One of the necessary ingredients to add to homemade soap is a variety of dyes: natural or artificial. There are several types of dyes, so any novice soap maker needs to know which dyes to choose for handmade soap in a given case.
Natural dyes for soap
If you want the soap you make to be as healthy and natural as possible, you can use various herbs, flowers, spices, oils and many other natural products for coloring.
Of course, when using them it is not always possible to obtain beautiful rich colors. Most often, the soap will acquire only a light, delicate shade. But soap colored with such a dye will be even more useful.
Attention! Added herbs can often form brownish flecks in the soap over time.
Brown color Cocoa powder, cinnamon, coffee, grated chocolate, and brewing black or green tea will add soap.
Yellow obtained by adding calendula or chamomile flowers (very light shades), turmeric, saffron.
Orange color Adds rosehip or sea buckthorn oil.
Grey colour and its shades can be obtained by adding a little blue clay or activated carbon. It is necessary to grind these additives very carefully to obtain a uniform color.
Green color You will get soap if you take a little dried dill, parsley or seaweed.
Food coloring for soap
If you want really beautiful, uniform and varied colors, try liquid food coloring. There are red, blue, yellow, green and brown food colorings available and can be mixed together to create almost every color of the rainbow. They do not harm the skin at all and are very easy to use.
For one bar of soap weighing about 100 grams, it is enough to add only 1-7 drops of dye, depending on how bright the color you want to get.
Food coloring is ideal for coloring single-color soaps. If you want to make multi-colored soap, it is better not to use these dyes. Over time, they can migrate in the soap and blend unsightly at the borders of colors.
Cosmetic pigments for soap
Cosmetic pigments are great for creating colorful soaps—the colors will stay crisp and vibrant. Soap pigments do not migrate.
If you purchased the pigment in powder, before use it must be diluted in a small amount of any glycerin or glycerin. The amount of pigment per 10 ml of liquid is 1 gram (this is approximately 1 level teaspoon). Rub all lumps and grains especially thoroughly! The mixture can be prepared in advance and stored, but before adding to soap, do not forget to shake the bottle with diluted pigment well.
Choose the right dyes for handmade soap and the result will delight you!
Safe and harmless, they do not “cloudy” the soap base, easy to use, just add 1-2 drops of liquid or gel dye per 100 grams of base, and pre-dilute the powder ones in water. Water-soluble food dyes are economical and ideal for coloring plain soaps. It is important to know that such dyes migrate and are therefore not suitable for coloring multi-colored soaps with clear boundaries.
Pigment pastes - resistant to temperature, pH changes, lightfast, do not migrate, leaving clear boundaries in multi-color soap. Suitable for soap from soap base and for soap from scratch . Give natural natural colors. They can “cloudy” the soap base. It is necessary to shake the bottle of paste well before use until homogeneity is achieved. Before use, undiluted pigment pastes must be diluted with water or glycerin in a ratio of 1:3 or 1:4.
Natural pigments consist of natural minerals and cosmetic emulsifiers - these are natural inorganic dyes. They are resistant to temperature, pH changes, lightfast, do not migrate, leaving clear boundaries in multi-color soap. Suitable for both soap from soap base and soap from scratch. Give natural natural colors. They can “cloudy” the soap base.
Mother of pearls in powder form , consisting of inorganic substances, impart exquisite pearlescent tints to the finished soap. They don't migrate. The most convenient way is to add pearls to the melted soap base at the tip of a stick or teaspoon.
Glitters (sparkles) - These are small particles of iridescent film; they can be classified as dyes conditionally, because... they do not change the color of the base. By adding a pinch of glitter to the slightly cooled melted base and stirring it, you will get soap with glitter inside.
That’s all for the properties of the dyes. Now, armed with the knowledge you have gained, you can safely go to the store and buy exactly the dye you need.
But what to do if you have already started making soap, but you don’t have the dye you need or several at once? Don't worry, you can always get the color you want by mixing other colors! To make it easier and more convenient for you to navigate, I have compiled a color mixing table.
I wish you good luck in experimenting with color!
¹ Migrating dyes mix (“migrate”) in one multi-color soap, penetrating each other across the base boundary, even in finished (hardened) soap. It is advisable to use migrating dyes only in single-color soaps.
² Non-migrating dyes do not mix (do not “migrate”) in the same soap. Such dyes are used in multi-color soaps.
For greater attractiveness and originality, soap is usually added various dyes, which give it a finished look. You could even say that dye is one of the most important components of soap. After all, a person is first of all attracted by the color of the soap, then by its smell, and then by other properties.
In addition to the main dyes, various soap decorations are also used in soap making, for example, beads,.
There are several types of dyes: cosmetic pigments, liquid pigments, fat- and water-soluble food dyes. Each of the above dyes has its own characteristics that must be taken into account when making soap. All these dyes emphasize the curves and reliefs of the soap, color it in all the colors of the rainbow and give the work a complete look.
Cosmetic pigments for soap
Natural dyes for soap. Some natural ingredients are natural and absolutely harmless dyes. Sea buckthorn oil gives the soap orange-yellow shades, an alcohol solution of Chlorophyllipt and henna will color the soap green, chocolate - coffee, curry powder - yellow. Chamomile essential oil and blue clay will help add bluish tints. Soap can be colored black with activated carbon.
Dry cosmetic pigments.
This type of dye gives a beautiful and very stable color that does not migrate. Therefore, pigments are used to give clarity to the design and when using the “soap in soap” technology. To avoid the appearance of lumps in the base, this dye is pre-mixed with a small amount of glycerin or oil.
Liquid cosmetic pigments.
These are dry cosmetic pigments that have been previously diluted in a base oil. Therefore, such a dye does not form unsightly lumps in the soap base. Such pigments also do not migrate.
Water- and fat-soluble food dyes for soap.
These dyes do not need to be diluted; they are sold ready-made. Using fat- and water-soluble dyes you can achieve uniform, very beautiful, pure shades. You can find dyes on sale in brown, green, blue, yellow and red colors, which can be used in pure form or mixed with each other.
All food colors are very easy to use and absolutely harmless to the skin.
These dyes are very economical. For 100 g of soap base, 2 to 7 drops of food coloring are enough. However, it has one big drawback. If you use this dye to make multi-colored soap, then over time the dye begins to migrate (the boundaries of the colors are gradually blurred). Therefore, it is preferable to use food coloring when making single-color soap. If you plan to maintain the transparency of the soap base, then it is necessary to use water-soluble food dyes, since other types of dyes cloud the transparent soap base.
Titanium dioxide
Titanium dioxide.
It is not a migratory pigment. It is used in the manufacture of medicines, food products, and medicines. Titanium dioxide gives the transparent base a matte and white appearance. If you add a small amount of titanium dioxide to the soap base, the base will only become slightly cloudy; a larger amount of this dye can make the soap base completely matte. Using titanium dioxide, you can create a variety of visual effects.
If you are a homemade soap maker, then you probably want to use only the best, healthiest, and natural ingredients for your soap. The same applies to the use of dyes for soap. If desired, soap from scratch can be given almost any desired color using only natural dyes. The only difference is more muted, pastel and natural shades. Those. screaming red or breathtaking purple cannot be achieved using only natural means.
As natural dyes for coloring soap, you can use decoctions of herbs and flowers, dry plant extracts, cosmetic clays, various spices and much of what can be found in the kitchen. And as a bonus, any addition to soap will carry additional properties.
One of the most common is adding cosmetic clay to soap from scratch. Clays come in red, pink, blue, green, yellow, as well as black and white, and each has its own properties. However, you should not take their names literally, since in reality they do not always coincide. For example, blue clay in most cases is gray, and accordingly gives the soap a gray or dirty blue color, while white (or kaolin) will never make the soap snow-white; most likely, it will be light beige.
Adding clay to soap gives the soap a light peeling effect. Moreover, according to my observations, if the soap is cooked hot, then the peeling is really light, and if it is cold, then the clay already gives a noticeable scrubbing effect (has anyone else noticed this?!). 
And yet, clay can give a different shade in soap of different compositions. Once upon a time I made whipped soap based on shea butter, its composition was exactly about 50% - accordingly, the soap itself was white, and the pink clay added to it gave it a soft pink pastel and a very pleasant shade (it’s a pity that the photo was not preserved! ). And here (photo on the left) is pink clay with a different basic composition of oils.
And these soaps used green clay and sea buckthorn oil as natural dyes - in the first photo, and Gassul clay - in the second.
Adding ground coffee to the soap (mine was NOT sleepy!) gives it a dark brown color and makes it a very powerful scrub! And if you add not grains, but the drink itself, even a very strong one, then the color will not be so rich. Please note - in the second case, I did not dissolve the alkali in the coffee, but added it little by little after the gel and before laying it out in the mold.
Dark brown color and amazing caring qualities will be given to the soap by chocolate or cocoa beans. If you make hot process soap, you will also get an amazing chocolate aroma. With the cold method of preparing chocolate soap, the smell is weaker and more indistinct.
If you do not overdo it with chocolate, the soap will not stain the foam, but it may stain the washcloth. In this soap, I took 600g. oils - 25g. grated cocoa beans.
A positive green, as opposed to the muddy tint produced by green clay, can be achieved by adding parsley juice or barley extract as a colorant for soap (photo on the left with the addition of barley extract). They are added using the hot method, little by little, after the soap has passed through the gel stage. Or use unrefined laurel oil (photo on the right), which also gives the soap a strong aroma and antiseptic properties.
Sunny orange gives sea buckthorn oil (for this, choose oil from the pulp, not from the seeds, it is more saturated in color and is added literally in drops).
Or buriti oil. It also produces a vibrant orange color. Add these oils to superfat when making hot process soap. This way they will retain all their valuable qualities.
My next experiment with natural dyes was with grape skin extract. Well, it gives such an incredible color when dissolved in water that I couldn’t help but try it in soap! But in soap everything turned out to be not so simple. It's no secret that the alkaline environment that soap has is capable of performing various tricks with it. That's how it happened. After adding a rich burgundy, the color of good red wine, dry extract solution to the finished soap, it (the soap) turned dark blue! Of course, I was surprised and upset by such metamorphoses, but I mixed the soap and went to bed. Imagine my surprise when in the morning it changed color to one more adequate to the added grapes. But! When cutting, the soap inside was still dark blue, although after some time it acquired a pleasant color again. Here it is (left). And on the right is soap with the addition of red wine.
Important! I very rarely (almost never!) dilute alkali in decoctions, extracts, hydrosols and other benefits. Firstly, I don’t see the point in this, because... the alkali will “eat up” all the useful substances, and secondly, the color of the soap, as a rule, after such games will be, excuse me, “a la poop” and cannot be corrected by any dye, especially a natural one. Therefore, when I write “add a little after the gel and at the end of cooking,” I mean the following.
We replace part (about 1/3) of the estimated amount of liquid with a decoction, extract or other useful thing and add it to the soap after it has passed the gel stage gradually and a little at a time. That is, if according to the recipe we have 200g. liquid, then in 135g. purified water we will dissolve the alkali, and another 65g. We will add it later in the form of, for example, a decoction. This way you will get the properties of herbs and extracts preserved in soap as much as possible and a pleasant shade.
Of course, these are not all my experiments and not all possible options for using natural dyes for soap from scratch, so this post will have a continuation soon!
Thanks for stopping by, have a nice day!
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If you want your soap to be completely natural, make it from scratch and use natural dyes. The main beauty of these dyes is that almost every woman has them at home. With them you will not get very bright saturated colors, but rather delicate, pastel shades.
Clays can be used as natural dyes.
For example, pink clay gives a nice color. It also seems to be called “faded rose” - a very delicate pastel shade of pink.
Before use, the clay must first be ground in oil - almost like pigment dyes.
Charcoal in soap produces a color ranging from light gray to black, depending on the concentration. First, the coal must be ground into dust (in a coffee grinder, for example), and mixed with glycerin.
Another example of using pink clay - the color is even more subtle, because... The soap itself was white.
The orange flecks in this soap are tomato paste. Approximately 1 tsp. tomato paste per 200 grams of soap mass gives such a nice color.
In pumpkin soap, the paste concentration is higher and the color is more intense.
Blue clay gives a gray tint, and green clay gives a greenish tint. The green color can also be obtained by using parsley juice to prepare an alkaline solution.
Many herbal decoctions, for example, St. John's wort, when used in soap from scratch instead of water, give a brown color of varying degrees of intensity.
Cinnamon produces the deep, dark brown color in glycerin soap from scratch. However, if your soap had a light shade, then cinnamon will make the color of such soap milky chocolate.
Wine will not necessarily turn your soap ruby red. More likely red-brown.
Experiment and be creative with everything. And then wonderful soap will never escape you!
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