Water Soluble Colors in CP Soap - The Results

We’re back to see how the soap turned out using our Water Soluble Colors. I shredded all three colors of soap, then I stirred them into a batch of white soap so any bleeding of the colors would be obvious.

The colors did change from the wet soap to the dry soap, but not as drastically as I’d expected. The pink was the most drastic change of color, from a muddy red to a vibrant pink. I was glad to see the grayish hue in the purple went away!

Freshly poured soap – the colors will change as the soap hardens.

These are the three colors we get from using our Water Soluble Colors kit in cold process soap.

I used the same recipe as I’d used for the colors to make the white soap: 6 oz Palm Oil, 5 oz Coconut Oil, 4 oz Olive Oil, and 1 oz Mango Butter, including the Rain Orchid fragrance. Then I combined all three colors of shredded soap and stirred them into my white soap when it had reached a medium trace. I piled it into a loaf mold and did a little texturing on top and sprinkled with yellow shreds to accent.

White soap batter with shreds of color mixed in.

Soap in the mold with some sprinkles of yellow on top.

When the soap was finished and cut, I took a photo of one bar. Four weeks later, I photographed that same bar to see how much the colors bled. Here are the results:

Soap just after unmolding.

Soap after 4 weeks.

As anticipated, the water soluble colors did bleed into the white portion of the soap. I actually like the effect when using the colored soap as shreds. If I’d used the colors in a drop swirl, for example, I may have been disappointed to see the bleeding. I hope this experiment has been a helpful tutorial into using water soluble colors in cold process soap!