Color: Muted brown-green. Usage: Stir in as a powder at a light trace. I’ve not used it before, personally, but I’ve seen it used in this way in another person’s r ecipe. To help solve this problem, UNICEF approached SAVONOR, the biggest industrial soap producing company in Burundi, and reached an agreement: SAVONOR would reduce its own profit margin in soap production, and UNICEF would further subsidize the production – effectively cutting the price of soap in half. SAVONOR would also use its distribution system to make the soap available all over the country.

You can use many ingredients to get soft beiges to chocolate browns in soap. One I regularly use in my own soap is honey. Add a teaspoon of honey to your lye solution, and the heat will immediately caramelize it. Not only does it tint soap a rich fudge brown, but it smells delicious, too. Ingredient Color: Light to deep yellow. Usage: Add 1/4-1 tsp powder PPO mixed in a little oil at trace. Be aware that it can add an exfoliating/scratchy texture. You can also infuse liquid oil with the powder and use the oil as part of your soap recipe. Color: Peach to light orange to orange-brown Usage: The best way is to infuse paprika in liquid oils, strain, and discard the actual spice, or your soap may be scratchy. Adding the spice directly will also result in less vibrant hues. Color: Pale to dark yellow. Usage: add 1/2-1 tsp finely grated lemon peel, either fresh or dry, after trace. Color: Shades of soft gray-green to gray-blue, depending on the color of your soaping oils. Use 1-2 tsp per pound of oils and premix in 1 TBSP distilled water or add to the lye solution. See this Cambrian Blue Clay Soap RecipeColor: Natural purple Usage: Similar in shade and usage to Alkanet root. Cold-infuse 30g of dried root or powder into every 454g (1lb) of oils for one month. Strain and use the oil as part or all of the soap recipe. You need at least 20% of your soap recipe to include the infused oil to achieve a good purple color. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to get a true red when using natural soap colors. Most plant-based colorants will be closer to deep pink, reddish-brown, and mauve, with the exception possibly being Himalayan rhubarb. It’s more of a vibrant pink-red in my experience, though some soapmakers have reported getting a scarlet red with it. Ingredient

You can get pretty shades of sky blue to denim blue with natural soap colors, including indigo, clay, and small amounts of activated charcoal. One of my favorites on the list is indigo since it’s a plant you can grow and harvest color from. Ingredient Puree: soft plant material that is blended into a puree with a small amount of distilled water. Some plant materials, such as carrots, will need to be cooked or steamed first. Others, like avocado, are ready to be mashed up without cooking. Stir purees into soap batter at a light trace. Color: muted green. Usage: Premix dried and powdered nettle leaf with a little water and add at trace. Use 1-3 tsp PPO. Alternatively, you can make a nettle leaf puree with fresh leaves and stir it in at trace. Color: Light to dark brown. Usage: 1-3 tsp per pound of oils and added to the lye solution. Milk can scorch and create an unpleasant scent in your soap if you use too much. For a white soap, see this goat milk soap recipe.There are three ways to use woad to naturally color soap blue. No matter which method you try, begin with a soap recipe that doesn’t include a lot of yellow or golden oils. The reason being is golden oils naturally create cream to pale yellow colored bars. This warm color will interact with woad, giving you green bars in the end — it’s like mixing blue paint with yellow. So avoid extra virgin olive oil and other dark oils and butters and use recipes that include coconut oil, shea butter, and light-colored liquid oils such as olive oil pomace. Color: dusky pink.Usage: simmer the cochineal in water and use it to replace some or all of the water called for in the soap recipe. Please note that this is not a vegetarian or vegan ingredient. Cochineal soap recipe

Color: Pale to buttery yellow. Usage: Create a puree of the yellow flower petals as directed in this daffodil soap recipe. Avoid using any parts of the plant that are green as it contains a milky substance that can irritate the skin. Add the puree to the lye solution or stir it in at trace. The guide below gives you different options for naturally coloring handmade soap. They are all plant-based or use natural substances like clay and sugars. I’ve collected the ideas from around the web, and when I’ve tried one out and liked it, I’ve shared a link to the recipe in the chart. Though the color guide is for cold-process soap, you could also use the ingredients in hot-process and sometimes in melt-and-pour. Shades, amounts, and techniques will vary. Mineral Pigments and DyesColor: Light yellow to deep orange. Usage: This is not one that I’ve used before, but I understand that you can add the oil after trace. Color: pink to intense magenta. Infuse the dried rhubarb powder in a carrier oil (which will appear yellow) and use it as a partial or full replacement, as you can see in this rhubarb soap recipe. Adding the powder directly will result in a murky red-brown hue. Color: Light to medium orange Usage: Stir in as a pure tomato paste at a light trace using 1-3 tsp PPO. Color: Light to dark brown. Usage: add 1/2-1 tsp to hot lye solution as described in this honey soap recipe. Color: Deep brown. Usage: Add powder at trace and be aware that they create a scratchy or exfoliating texture.