Heavenly duo - Vanilla and Neroli

I love vanilla scent and I have used up all my vanilla soap so I had to make another one.  This time I thought I should combine it with some flowery scent (Neroli is my favorite) because Vanilla can be a tad too sweet on it's own.

For those lovely scents I thought I should try Madder root again.  I have used it a few times and of course the challenge with Madder is to get the blueish red dyes to appear.  Apparently Madder has five different dyes ranging from yellow through warm red and brown to blueish red.  The dyes are sensitive to PH, blue reds appearing in an alkaline environment and the warm reds in acidic solutions.

Since Madder root is water soluble I decided to give it a long time in the caustic soda to try to extract the maximum amount of dye.  I have read that one should rinse the root in cold water to wash away the more yellow dyes, so I did that.  I also decided that I would add it quickly to the lye solution while it was still quite hot to see what effect heat had on the Madder, hoping that it would extract more colour.  I let the madder sit overnight and soaped at room temperature.  When I combined the lye and the oils the Madder showed it's lovely blue reds, but very quickly turned to peachy coral.  I think that colour is fashionable right now, so I didn't mind.  Madder seems to want to be warm coloured in soaps and that's the way it is.

The idea was to take a part of the Madder coloured soap and add Vanilla to it and that part would turn brown and cover the Madder colour.  I had also planned to attempt a fancy swirl, and use a cardboard separator in the middle and all.

The reality was that I had started to make the soap without setting up the molds first and it took a while to line them and cut the cardboard and then the soap started to seize.  So much for my ambitious plans.  I used Neroli essential oil with a touch of Benzoin, ylang ylang and a small splash of Cubea Litsea.  I was a bit surprised since I was soaping at room temperature, but soaping is unpredictable and I think that is what makes it so fascinating for me.

But it smells devinely and I love the feel of it on my skin.  I used the last of my Almond oil, so I need to order some more.  It is really nice in soap.

The recipe I used this time is:

Coconut oil 25% 125g / 4.4oz
Olive oil 20% 100g / 3.5oz
Almond oil 20% 100g / 3.5oz
Rapeseed oil 20% 100g / 3.5oz
Cocoa butter 15% 75g / 2.6oz


Water 30% 150g / 5.3oz infused with dried and chopped madder root which is then strained
Lye 70g / 2.5oz

My fascination with natural colour has taken me a step further and I am now in the process of using plants to dye wool and a tiny bit of silk, just to see what colours I can get. I'm having loads fun and have learned a lot, some of which may be helpful in colouring soap. I have for example learned that when extracting dye from roots, heat will bring out more of the yellow tints.  So next time I used Madder I will use less heat and see if I can coax it to a slightly pinker shade.
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Lemongrass and madder - Unexpected combo

Those Russian ladies are always cute. I have no idea where
I got them.  Is that weird? The braiding I got in my favorite
flea market The Good Shepherd for about 4 dollars. I used
some of it on my little daybed that I recovered. That post
is still a draft :)

Trying to match fragrance to colour is a challenge, especially when one is committed to using natural colours only.  This combo may or may not be repeated.

I used Madder root for this soap and this time I used a bit more than I have done previously.  The colour is more of a tan than the warm red that I was hoping for, but that may suit the scent better.  Although somehow I guess Lemongrass should be either yellow or slightly green. Which reminds me, I need to try dried Parsley soon!

But I love Lemongrass scent, it lasts so much better than lemon.  The soap smells lovely and I used dried bits of Lemongrass on top.  Tha may not be such a good idea because it was a bitch to cut.

This recipe was the same as the one I used for the Palmarosa soap apart from the colouring material and the scent.  I think I need to wait to use the soap before I decide what I think about it.  I may learn to like it yet.
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My gift to myself - Madder root and Neroli soap

That lovely little tablecloth I bought in Slovakia. The
little lantern is from the Good S as is the glass bowl.  What
a fantastic shape.

I love making new recipes for soaps.  Mostly because I get new ideas, but sometimes I just don't have the ingredients that I need, so I improvise.  I try to use all my soaps to see how I like them and I really use them for a while to get a strong feeling for my preference.  I recently have been reaching for the same one, and realized that I really liked the way it lathers andfeels on the skin.  So I decided to make that recipe again, just for me with my absolute favorite fragrance, Neroli.

I also welcomed the opportunity to use Madder root again.  I really loved the colour I obtained last time, but it did fade to very, very light pink.  I therefore used about twice the amount as before.  But this is a facination of natural colours.  They reward me by being different every single time and I never get bored.  This time I got a very lovely peach colour.  A little bit more delicate than I intended, but who am I to argue with nature?

The recipe I used was a bit different from the one I intended to recreate because I didn't have enough Almond oil, so I improvised.  It will be interesting to see if I like the soap as much as the other.

Madder root and neroli soap.
This recipe is for 700g

25%     Coconut oil            175 g / 6 oz
25%     Lard                       175 g / 6 oz
20%     Grapeseed oil         135 g / 4.7 oz
17%     Apricot kernel oil   118 g / 4.1 oz
7%       Almond oil               50g / 1.7 oz
6%       Soybean oil              45g / 1.5 oz

I put about 2-3 tbsp of Madder root into the lye water and let it sit until cool enough to use it in the soap. The soap turned a nice pink which I felt was quite blue pink tobegin with, but it rapidly changed to a much warmer pink, ending in peach.  The scent I used was mostly Neroli, but I added some frangipani that I had left over and some ylang ylang as well.  It smelled wonderful and I do hope it stays.  I put the soap in the fridge to prevent trace in the hope that it would also result in the fragrance holding.

The smell of lye is gone now and it seems that the scent comes through in a nice and gentle way.  That is the way I like it, so perfect for my birthday present which is in a few weeks.  I look forward to it.  I know I'll get a great  present!
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Madder root - pink perfection

Like most girls I like pink!  I don't know what it is about pink that makes it so special that all little girls seem to like it.   Naturally pink soap is on the top of my list of "must" colours.  I did find a synthetic colour that produced a decent pink.  It's a nice enough colour, but I haven't ever used the soap myself.  I just dislike it a bit.  The colourant is sold as a soap colour and is supposed to produce a lilac and probably does in melt and pour bases, but in CP it is pink.  The label doesn't say anything about what is in it!  Maybe I'm a control freak, but I need to know exactly what goes into my soaps and there is no ingredients list on this colourant.  So my preference for a natural alternative drove me on in my search for alternatives.  And I found it in Madder root, Rubia tinctorium.

I found this great little website: Leaftradingpost.com.  It's not a soap supply page, they sell some really neat natural things like antlers, sheepskin, beeswax and natural dyes.  Their prices are very reasonable and the service is excellent.  I ordered some dyes and a bit of mordant (that's to use in fabric dyeing should I get bored with soaps - fat chance) and one of them was madder root.

Madder root is soluble in water and although I had seen somewhere a suggestion to use madder root powder infused in oil, I had more coarse chunks and put them into the lye solution.  It turned a lovely purplish red.  I saw somewhere that it was smart to steep it in the lye solution overnight, but I was in a hurry.

Madder root has very many colouring agents ranging from orange to blue-red.  That is the pretty Alizarin which will only show up in a fairly alkaline environment, like lye.  When Madder root is put in water it turns an orangey sort of colour, but add a bit of lye - magic!

I probably should have steeped it overnight because the result was a VERY delicate pink.  But pretty all the same.  I put some madder in a jar with some lye and put it in the fridge for using next time.  Maybe I'll get a darker pink.

I made up a new recipe that I thought would be gentle and suitable for a pink soap:

Coconut oil            -   175 g / 6.2 oz
Lard                        -   175 g / 6.2 oz
Grapeseed oil         -   104 g / 3.7 oz
Almond oil             -   102 g / 3.6 oz
Apricot kernel oil   -     74 g / 2.6 oz
Sunflower oil          -     70 g 2.5 oz
Lye      -   98 g / 3.5 oz
Water   - 266 g /9.4 oz
That should be about 5% SF, but as always check in a lye calculator.

So about 1 tbsp madder root into the hot lye solution which is then strained into the oils.
For fragrance I used a blend of clary sage, geranium and lemongrass EO.  Smells wonderful.  The resulting soap was a nice consistency, fairly hard for me and it cut nicely.  It's still curing, so I'll have to wait a little while to test it.

Update:  The colour faded and was gone after about 9 months.  But this is still one of my favorite soaps.

The photo: More doilies.  These will end up on my daughters wedding dress. The rubber gloves were a gift from the happy couple, the wooden box stores my seeds and the pressed glass bowl is part of a matching set that I use in the guest bathroom.