# Colorants...



## JumpinIrish4ever (Mar 11, 2010)

Ok, I've never added colorants to my soaps...yet...but I want to try. I just went to a few websites and was completely overwhelmed!! There are liquid dyes, powdered dyes, micas, etc. I don't know where to start!! 

What do you recommend?? How much do you typically use in one batch of soap??? I'm so excited to start trying colors!


----------



## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

TKB POP micas are my current favorite. I also use a lot of ultramarine blue and green.

How much to use depends on the depth of color you want and whether or not your FO is discoloring. I made test batches and added color to single bars to see the results. So, like 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 tsp per bar. You can mix the colors too. I only have a few where all the soap is colored. Most have a portion poured off that is colored then poured back in giving me a swirl throughout the bars.


----------



## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

I also love the POP micas. I also have a few UM and other micas. I also have Select Shades liquids and I don't like them at all.


----------



## Faye Farms (Sep 14, 2009)

Another mica fan. I use all the pops and some others too. I have totally fallen in love with the Taurus Orion green from TKB. I mostly swirl with them as well. There are only a couple of scents that I color the entire batch. I typically use 1 tsp ppo.


----------



## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

If it takes off and you move to larger molds Mica's hurt your bottom line for anything other than very surface type swirls or in textured tops. You can't afford to mica whole batches for color. So starting with ultramarines etc...is a very good idea, so if your soaping takes off you can still do what you are used to. I use two clays, pink and green, using them as swirls only because they make your soap brittle to cut and sort of chalky feeling if you use it to color the whole batch. I also do a swirl with dead sea much. For swirling the walmart batch I simply take out 1 cup of raw soap material before I scent it, and add from 1 teaspoon etc...a little more of green maybe a tablespoon...little more than that of dead sea mud to swirl. Mica's take a little less but the effect is also less inside the soap. I love peacock colors, just google that...and with her the more you buy the less it is, I now use 3 of her colors and from using 10 drops in 2 cups of soap to swirl to using a tablespoon to color a batch. With an ultamarine (green) that I use I only use 1/2 teaspoon to color my 25 pound pours, so a little goes a very very long way with it. Vicki


----------



## VickiLynne (Feb 8, 2008)

:help2 Ok, I have never colored my soap. So this might sound stupid...what is POP and TKB? :sigh

Vicki in NC


----------



## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

TKB is the name of the company that sells POP micas (tkbtrading.com). They're called POP micas because the colors are so vivid (depending on how much you use) and they are stable in CP soap.


----------



## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Also note that micas sound like they are warm and fuzzy and natural...some are...most aren't  They are simply mixtures with other FD&C colorants and ultramarines in them. Vicki


----------



## JumpinIrish4ever (Mar 11, 2010)

Vickie, where is a good place to buy ultramarines?? I emailed Peacock Colors too. 

Thanks!!


----------



## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

From Barb  No really ask her, she sent me some a couple of years ago, I added a green she told me about, last year...and still have about 1/2 a pound of it, it will last me 5 more years. I think it's the one she uses in her cucumber, it's an excellent green. Other than that one I don't use them. Vicki


----------

