Soap Swirls

I've always admired the beautifully colored swirls that many of my fellow soapmakers add to their soaps. After reading about how swirls are created and watching videos (Christy Rose of KBShimmer's video was especially inspirational), I finally attempted a swirl. I had some blue powder colorant (I don't know if it was a mica or oxide as there was no label on the jar), that I had received in a goodie bag. When the soap looked emulsified I took a teaspoon of the powder & mixed it with one ounce of avocado oil that was part of my soap recipe. I separated about a cup of soap from the batch, poured the colorant in, and stirred well. The soap was a beautiful shade of blue. I used the swirling method that Christy showed in her video. Everything looked great. I went to take a peak at the soap a few hours later and the color had grayed out. Even though the color didn't turn out they way I had hoped, I think the swirl came out pretty decent for a first attempt.

What do you think?

Cosmetic Colorants

While doing some research on soap colorants, I came across a very interesting blog post from Kaila Westerman. (Scroll down to her post dated February 4, 2010.) Kaila is well known in the soapmaking industry as an expert on cosmetic colorants. Kaila raises some very interesting points about using fruit and vegetable pigments as colorants in cosmetics. What do you think?