What natural colours to use in your soap

One way to colour your soap is to use natural colours.

There is a large range of plant powders you can use to colour your soap, most of them will give your soap muted, earthy tints. I find they work great in natural soap as they emphasize the natural provenance of all ingredients used in your soap.

What natural colours can you use?

Plant powders:

Turmeric for yellow to orange (depends how much you use. For a light yellow let the turmeric seep in olive oil and use the liquid only. Or for an intense colour add the turmeric powder directly to the soap);

Paprika powder for orange (please make sure it’s not smoked paprika or even worse hot paprika!);

Cacao for brown (the pure powder with no additives, not cocoa which contains sugar and other additives);

Activated charcoal for black;

Indigo plant powder for blue;

Naturally coloured clays (pink, light orange, green, brown);

Alkanet for blue, but sometimes it turns grey;

Madder root for peach colour;

Orange peel for orange;

Green tea powder for yellow-green;

Moringa leaf or spirulina for green.

Please see below a video of mixing your soap batter with activated charcoal.

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