Herbal Soaps for Color & Healing

Herbal Soaps for Color & Healing

 

Soaps are so much funner with color! My journey into soap making started with herbal soaps of course but not for color just healing. My soaps were the natural color off white sprinkled with bejeweled herbs and roots and sometimes some essential oils infused in them. It was fun then because it was what I knew. As I got deeper into soap making I found the art within and began to create and play with natural colors. We all know to get a child to take her medicine we have to disguise it a bit sometimes. For me I make a nice herb tea for my boys during cold season and mix it half n half with their favorite juice. Walaa! So for some of our clients they may have acne, dry, eczema, oily or scarred skin and desire a medicinal or healing soap. We all know we don't typically like the smell of medicinal soap, and we also seem to get stuck with that plain jane soap just because it's medicinal, doesn't sound exciting huh? So why not get a good bang for your buck and create some healing soaps with natural color from herbs. Awesome! There are so many easy to grow or affordable ways to purchase herbaceous plants that will take your soaps to the next level. In this article we will discuss ways to extract the color from the herb to your soaps using oils! If you are interested in learning about which herbs will produce a certain color please visit Natural Soap Colorants. Enjoy!!

 

Extracting colors from herbs:

So there's more than one way to extract colors from herbs, and certain extraction methods work better for some herbs than others. To find out which method will work best for the particular herb and color you are working with research and experimenting is your best friend. Let's get started:

 

Color Soap Naturally-via lovin soap

 

 

 

Infusing oil is probably my favorite method of using natural colorants. It works for most natural colorants but we’ll talk about the ones that do better using a different method as we go along. When you infuse oil you don’t get the grainy speckled look you get when you add spice or herb powders to traced soap.

You want to be sure to use a long shelf life oil for infusing.The top three are fractionated coconut oil, jojoba oil and olive oil. I usually stick with olive oil as all of my soap recipes contain olive oil.

There are two main methods of infusing oils.

Cold infusion –Add spices or herbs to the oil in a jar and allow to sit 2-6 weeks to infuse. If I’m infusing powdered spices or herbs I infuse 2 tablespoons in 5 oz oil. If I am using dry whole herbs then I’ll fill the jar with the herb and cover with oil. Never use fresh herbs in cold infusions as they contain water and will cause mold and bacteria to grow.

Heat infusion –Add spices or herbs to the oil and heat gently to kick start the infusion. Some spices and herbs infuse easily using the heat infusion method and you can even use the infusion the same day! You can heat using the crock pot turned to warm for 2-6 hours or low heat on the stove for 2-6 hours. You can use fresh herbs in a heat infusion if you plan on using the oil in soap making the same day. Don’t ever store away an infusion made with fresh herbs as they contain water and your infusion will grow bacteria and mold.

My favorite method is to use a hot water bath to gently heat the infusions. I seal the herbs and spices in heat sealable tea bags so I don’t have to worry about straining the infusion before I use it. I just simply remove the tea bag. Here’s how I do it.

I usually infuse 2 tablespoons of any powdered herb or spice into 5 ounces of olive oil.

Step 1 – Measure out 2 tablespoons of your powdered herb into a heat sealable tea bag.

 

Step 2 – Seal the edge with an iron.  Make sure it is sealed and will not come open.

Step 3 – Place the sealed teabag into the canning jar and cover with 5 oz (weight) of olive oil.

Step 4 – Screw on the lid and secure tightly.  If you’re doing many infusions at once make sure you label them so you don’t forget what they are.  I just use a permanent marker on the lid.

Step 5 – Place your jars into a pan.  Fill the pan with enough water to reach about 1” underneath the lid.  You want the water to stay plenty beneath the bottom of the jar lids.

Step 6 – Turn the heat on low and let heat for about two hours.  You can also do this in a crock pot.  Just set the crock pot on warm.

Step 7 – Remove the jars from the pan and allow them to cool away from cool air or drafts.  You don’t want the jars to break.  I typically put my jars on the counter and cover with a towel to keep out the drafts or air if it kicks on.  Check the color of your infusions.  Some herbs and spices infuse easier than others.  I noticed the alkanet, paprika, indigo, turmeric and annatto all looked nice and dark.  But some of the others looked like they needed a bit more time.  You can either heat for another hour or two or if you aren’t in a hurry to use them…let them sit somewhere out of the way for a week to get a darker infusion.

That’s it!  Wasn’t that easy?  And the best part is that since we used the tea bags to contain the spices and herbs we don’t have to bother with straining which can be a mess!

To use your infused oils simply replace a portion of olive oil in a recipe with infused olive oil.  We’ll go into more detail later on in the series. 

Happy Soaping!