Using Woad as a Natural Soap Colorant

I love color, I am always looking for different ways to get certain colors naturally.
Sometimes working with a natural color is the way to go to get that certain blue or green color.  In this post I will share with you how to use both Cambrian Blue Clay & Indigo Powder and Woad Powder.

Here's the recipe I used:

Olive Oil- 1474 gr
Coconut Oil- 623 gr
Palm Oil- 396 gr
Water- 855 gr
Lye- 337 gr

Cambrian Blue Clay- 2 tbsp
Indigo Root Powder- 1/3 tsp
or

For The Woad Recipe

Woad- 1/2 tsp

Mix your sodium hydroxide into the water, then add your clay and indigo into the hot lye.  You will want to extract the colors out of the indigo and the blue clay so we add it to the lye. Blue Clay can sometimes come out very greenish looking so I like to pump it up a little by adding some Indigo Root Powder.

Blue Clay & Indigo in the Lye

Woad in the Lye

At about 110 degrees-mix as you would normally, pour into your molds and after two days remove from the mold. Let cure 4-6 weeks.  

Cambrian Blue Clay & Indigo Root

You can see it's pretty green right now but the blue will develop over the next two days.

Woad in the mold dusted with cocoa powder

When you unmold the woad comes out a little more greenish than the Blue Clay and I hear it has a history of fading.  Only time will tell. I will update this blog as to how fast or slow it fades.

Hope you get the opportunity to work with these two fabulous natural colorants.