Last week I got a big box o’ goodies in the mail from Mountain Rose Herbs, so I decided to do some experimenting with some of them this week.  I ordered some brightly colored herb powders to try in my cold process soap, and also had a few other things already on hand that I had just not gotten around to trying out yet.  Well today was the day, so thought I would share my initial results.  This picture was taken right after mixing in the colors, so the soap is still raw.  I also decided to test 2 essential oils I haven’t used yet – anise and a root beer type blend. I’ll update in a few days once it’s hardened – can’t wait to see how these progress!

top row (from left):  beet root powder, ground tumeric, sandalwood red powder, bayberry root powder
middle row: spinach powder, alkanet root powder, calendula pedals, ground anatto seed
bottom row: yucca root powder, anise essential oil, root beer essential oil blend

I made a 1 pound batch of basic soap and split it into 11 different cups that were pre-measured with my herbs.  I mixed each one in and made sure to label the cups.  Just after mixing the colors in I was already surprised by a couple of them.  I ordered the beet root powder because of its super bright pink color (and didn’t bother to do any research to see what others have said about using it in soap), thinking it would make the perfect pink soap.  We’ll see what it does after it cures, but as of now it’s brown.  The red sandalwood, on the other hand, is a beautiful shade of burgundy, but the powder is orange.  I’m expecting them all to change once they’ve set for a while, so we’ll see how they turn out.  Stay tuned for part 2!

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