Teach Soap

I recently whipped up a batch of what I thought would be white, green and red swirled soap, going for a Christmas theme. My fo was Spiced Cranberry from WSP, which I thought wasn't supposed to discolor or cause problems at all. For the first time since I've been soaping, I also used all aloe liquid in place of the water. Here's what I ended up with.

Just poured - looks like what I expected:



A couple days later when I cut the bars:



The fragrance is still very nice and I'm not unhappy with the result, but just surprised. I hadn't stopped to think that changing out the liquid might cause such a drastic colorant reaction... Anyone else experience this with aloe?

Whoa! I've never had aloe do that to my soap! What were your colourants? If I have the same ones I will experiment

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

That's quite a bit of difference! It still looks cool though. Which colorants did you use?

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

Spiced Cranberry does discolor to an ivory-ish color in white soap because of the 1% vanillin.

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Genny

I've been using aloe as a replacement for my water for a few months now and never had a problem with it discoloring. It does look nice though, if not the Christmas look you were going for... I agree with the others, what colorants were you using?

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If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane
~Jimmy Buffett

Sorry it took me so long to get the answer to your colorant question... I had to dig out my notes

Here's a pic of the red and green colorants I used, from TKB -- Queen Kathryn Red and Pennsylvania Green. I had specifically asked for CP-stable samples, and if you can read the labels, they do specify stable in all applications. So that's why I thought the Aloe had been the culprit. Anyone else use these colorants with problems? Thanks in advance!

Oh yeah, Queen Kathryn always turns orange for me. TKB always SAYS stuff is CP stable, and when it isn't blames the customer for not testing it once they received it I have so many colourants from them that they claimed are CP stable, that really aren't. I ended up buying a 25lb block of MP so I can use some of them LOL For a nice red try merlot sparkle mica from BB, ruby red mica from the conservatorie or tomato red liquid colourant from NG (nature's garden).

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

No problem! I have a 9 square bar silicone mold (BB) that I use for testing colours and fragrances, but you can also use an ice cube tray!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

Oh wow, thanks for the heads-up on those two! Will know now not to buy them. I can add my vote about NG's Tomato Red, it is a true red and I haven't had any problems with it bleeding or morphing.

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If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane
~Jimmy Buffett