I was thinking of trying alkanet to die some soap pinkish. I use it in lip balm. Just a bit for fun. Anyway, you take the alkanet and gentle heat it up with your oil to get the red color out normally for lip balm.

How would you do with with soap? Heat it in a bag with the oil? Does the lye and drying process change the color?

-- marcee (thathope@mwt.net), January 17, 2002

Answers

My experience with soap is that alkanet root gives it a lavender-gray or purple-gray sort of color. Some people put the alkanet root in with the lye solution to extract the color, then filter out the alkanet root before pouring the lye into the oils. I use powdered alkanet root and mix it into part of my batch after trace, then use it to marble the rest of the batch.

-- Sharon/WI (pinnow@inwave.com), January 17, 2002.

I agree. Alkanet root makes a purple soap. I use it for my lavender soap recipe. If you want pink, you can use French pink clay, which makes a very nice pink color. Mary

-- Mary Fraley (kmfraley@orwell.net), January 17, 2002.