Soap Making Part 2 - Colour

Original blog on how to make soap is here. Free printable soap labels here!
Soap Making Tutorial Video here.

I failed with the colour last time because I was using food dye (note: dye doesn't mix in oil so well...hmm who would've though? Not me apparently).

So I bought a range of lovely powder dyes online from Essentail Oils & Soap that look like this;

I also had a fail with the essential oils. Although the original recipe I used recommended 4oz of essential oil I went one better and added 8oz. And yet my soap still came out smelling like, well, soap. Which is fine. It could smell worse but I want it smell yummy so this time I'm going to add twice the amount and hope it doesn't affect the recipe too much!

OK, so I did my soapmaking on the weekend. I did two batches, one Cinnamon Leaf & Clove with brown clay colouring and Mandarin & Lemon Myrtle with a yellow ocre clay colouring. I had a slight fail with the Cinnamon Leaf & Clove one because when I went to add the essential oils (after adding the lye to the other oils) it turned the mixture chucky (like off milk). Twas quite gross.

So when I did my Mandarin & Lemon Myrtle batch I added the essential oils to the other oils BEFORE adding the lye. This seemed to work well but I did think the mixture was still quite liquidy when I poured it into the moulds. It could also be cause I was impatient and hadn't waited enough time for it to set a bit.

They are looking good after 24hours, they are harding well. There was a bit of oil resting on the top so I just tipped it out. I think I over did the colouring - maybe I've just invented fake tan soap!

Update: the Mandarin & Lemon Myrtle one have turned out ok so far but I had to throw out the Cinnamon Leaf & Clove ones because they weren't setting - so sad.

But this weekend I made a Coconut & Rose batch so fingers crossed!!

Update: Coconut and Rose soap actually turned out well (so far)...

After two weeks of curing.

Recently I made Chocolate & Coconut soap. It worked a bit better because I waited until the mixed had cooled and thickened a bit before pouring into molds. The marble affect was accidental, there was a layer of oil forming so I just mixed it up a bit while it was in the mold.