Teach Soap

I tried alkanet root for the first time expecting either a nice lavender or dark purpleish black soap based on other people's description...instead, my soap turned out very dark, ugly, reddish brown.

My recipe was simple: coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil, castor oil. 7% super fat.

With the alkenet, I infused 2 T. in 8 oz of olive oil overnight, then used 4 oz of the infused oil in the soap (reducing the amount of non-infused olive oil by 4 oz).

Was it something in my recipe that turned it reddish brown instead of ANY shade of purple? Too much superfatting, maybe? Any help is greatly appreciated.

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I am not an expert in colouring CP soap by far, but I have spent ages doing research - and I think where this may have gone wrong is that the alkanet did not infuse long enough to take on the colour. My notes are as follows :-

To infuse oil, add 2 tablespoons to a cup of oil, place in a sealed jar in a warm place. Let this steep for a couple of days, shaking or stirring every so often to macerate. When ready to use pour off a small portion and add to your warmed oils - the greater the portion of alkanet oil used the darker the colour will be.

To speed up the process you can use the Direct Heat Method - place your plant material into a crock pot or pan, cover with oil , put the lid on and heat on low for about 1 hour. Watch that the oil and plant material do not burn. After 1 hour, turn off the heat and let rest for about 12 -24 hours, the longer the better. Strain the oil through a coffee filter and use in your recipe as you would normally.

Oils with more yellow such as mango butter and essential oils with a high orange colour will mute the final colour of the soap. So to produce a deeper red shade, oils that are devoid of a yellowish tinge, eg coconut, lard and refined mango butter may help achieve more of a purple tinge.

Hope this helps.

Thanks! I have the remaining 4oz still infusing... so I'll use that to see if I can get a purple soap next time. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll try a different recipe. I have one that makes a very white bar... and if THAT doesn't work, well, then I guess I'll have about 6 oz of alkanet root powder for sale! lol!

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http://spottedhipposoap.blogspot.com/

I've used 20 gms. of alkanet to 80 ml. of Sunflower oil. My soap came out eggplant purple.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.