Natural Colours

At Soap Arch Naturals we colour our soap with a variety of plants, clays and charcoal. I have dried out coffee grounds and tea leaves for exfoliants that create light to dark brown and cream to grey tones. when used along with tea or coffee as the water portion, the colour lasts a lot longer. Dried herbs and flowers can also be used but often if used to colour soap they can turn brown over time. My first use of mint in a soap made an amazing green swirl in a coconut milk based soap.

Then next time I used it opposite oatmeal in the white soap base but it has turned brownish over the last 6 months. Mint leaves can be great as an exfoliant in soap because they stay in tact in the soap. In using a powdered version, they don't fully incorporate into the soap and so make a speckled soap. In both the pictures to the left, you can see the speckles made by the mint and how it incorporated only partially to create a different colour from the basic soap base. The second picture shows how a plant can brown in soap. Mint of course has an amazing scent even if it has turned brown in the soap.

Carrot is an interesting botanical to use in soap! I have been able to create lovely yellow and orange like in the title picture above and peach like the sunset camping bar to the left. The base was made with carrot water puree and created a very uniform colour. However, mixed with other types of oils in the Slice of Morning bar, carrot powder can go brownish grey. Regardless it is great for your skin. The benefit of using carrot is that it contains beta-carotene (Vitamin A) that makes it great for dry or sensitive skin.

Natural Clays are fabulous in soaps. They create great facial bars and can even be used like a mask depending on the concentration of clays used. I have used bentonite for oily skin types and it creates a light grey coloured soap. Often kaolin will be used for dry skin types and purple and pink Brazilian clays are good for skin types in between. French green clay is usually used for sensitive skin as well. They incorporate better into water because the absorb it. They create a nice uniform colour in soap as long as they are blended in well.

Regardless, clays are a nice way to add softness and a creamy element to soap so they are always used in my shaving bars!

The Mountain Storm bar has Kaolin clay, spirulina and alkanet powder. The difference between the smooth incorporated kaolin is white but the green has some specks from the unique algae it comes from and the alkanet always will have purple speckles through out. The bottom half of the bar is naturally yellow from the lemon zest powder I used.

In contrast, below we used a combination of bentonite, purple Brazilian clay, madder root, spirulina, and indigo powder. The random swirl technique with a swirl tool and several colours poured into a white base yeilds some very unique bars. Happy soaping!