Information on Colorants for Bath & Body Products

Color is an important ingredient of any bath product. There are natural powders such as coco powder, dried herbs, ground spices and mica powders and flakes. Mica powders give a beautiful sheen and are in a variety of metallic colors. The USDA does not restrict the use of mica powders or flakes, but if you are using these powders to your products it is recommended that you where a mask when working with them.

Also there are your cosmetic grade colorants which come in solid and liquid forms. Solid colorants for soap making are easy to use with your soap base because they just melt when you are melting your soap. This product comes in a soliddisk format and are available in six color - red, blue, yellow, orange, green and black. It is easy to blend them to create more colors. Liquid cosmetic grade colorants create true clean colors and are excellent for blending and creating many different hues. This particular type of colorant works well in bath salts, bubble bath, bath oil, lotions and creams.

You many have seen recipes or demonstrations where food coloring was used as a colorant for soap makng. Food coloring is not suitable for soaps because the color quickly fades. For bath oils, food coloring is not soluble so it just sits on top of the oil as floating beads of concentrated color. If you want you can use a small amount of food coloring to tint bath salts and bubble bath. Since you are going to purchase a liquid cosmetic grade colorant for your soap, you should continue using it for your other bath and body products.

When using colorants, you may want to consider the following:

*When colorants are added to hand-milled (or rebatched) soap, the hue will lighten as the soap cures.

*Colorants in clear glycerin soap bases will appear clean and jewel toned, but in white soap bases they will appear as a softer pastel color.

Source: Melt and Pour Soapmaking by Marie Browning, Sterling Publishing Company, New York, 2001. pages 20-21.