Experimenting with Purple Soap

There are several fragrances that smell purple to me. And almost all of them are yellow tinted oils. I’m really not sure how many batches of grey soap I’ve made trying to get a yellow tinted fragrance oil to come out purple in cold-processed soap. I’ve always used ultramarines to color soap. You would think that ultramarine violet would be a logical choice to create purple soap. And if the fragrance oil is clear, it works pretty well! However, those yellow tinted oils are a different sort of beast. I’ve tried adding some titanium dioxide to lighten up the base color – which works pretty well for lighter purple colors – such as lilac soap.

The challenge I’m up against this time is to create a grape scented soap. Grape is not light purple. I sent out an S.O.S. on Facebook yesterday, and received a very helpful reply from another soapmaker. Randi says that she uses blue 1 for her yellow-tinted huckleberry fragranced soap. Ah ha! I have blue 1, but I knew that it doesn’t stay blue in cold processed soap, so I’ve never tried to use it in soap. Until today!

Here are the pictures of my test batch of grape soap:

Yellow-tinted Grape Fragrance Oil
Yellow-tinted Grape Fragrance Oil
Powdered Blue 1
Powdered Blue 1
Blue 1 Dissolving in Water
Blue 1 Dissolving in Water
Blue 1 Changing Colors in Cold Processed Soap - too pink
Blue 1 Changing Colors in Cold Processed Soap - too pink

After adding the blue 1 to the soap, I realized that it wasn’t quite purple. Fortunately, I had already mixed up a nice slurry of ultramarines that I thought I was going to use in this soap. I had 1 teaspoon of ultramarine violet, about 1/2 teaspoon of ultramarine blue, and about 1/8 teaspoon of black oxide in about a tablespoon of glycerin.

Ultramarines Dissolved in Glycerin
Ultramarines Dissolved in Glycerin

I added about a teaspoon of this mixture to the soap, and it turned a little bit more purple. Here is the final soap in the mold (I’ll show you another picture tomorrow after I get it cut!):

Grape Soap in the Mold
Grape Soap in the Mold

If anyone else has some tips on how you color your cold-processed soap purple, please comment! I’ll be anxious to see how this soap looks tomorrow!

See a picture of the purple soap.

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  1. Why does soap have to be so difficult? 🙂

    I think you came up with a nice purple. It will be interesting to see it cut. Grape will be a fun scent, esp. for kids.

  2. I use a LabColours blue for my purple called… ummm… *hits head on table until brain starts to work*… Brilliant Blue, which turns a purple-ish colour in a high pH environment.
    I use it about half to one part brilliant blue to one part royal purple. It can then be tweaked with a little tomato red if needed. I also add some grape pop mica and the colour turns out quite nicely.
    This is how I make my “jelly” colour for peanut butter and jelly soap. (which is a very yellow based soap)
    Never having seen jelly IRL, I had to rely on my USA-ian SiL for confirmation that I had got the colour correct. Apparently it was acceptable 😉
    I tried adding TD to whiten, but the colour seemed to go a more pastel and I just wasn’t impressed.
    There’s also some type of plant that gives a purple colour… is it madder root, or is it alkanet root??
    Alkanet I think, but if I remember correctly it can be stroppy… one time a perfect blue hued purple, and the next more reddish. Same recipe, maybe a variance in temperature of a few degrees up or down.
    Anyway, hope this helps a little.
    It’s all good fun experimenting, and the family never says no to the unsaleable soap!

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