Baffled by color change in a Himalayan infused olive oil swirl, from beautiful red to brown :-/

Suzan

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Oct 18, 2025
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Ok, I attempted to make a feather swirl using a goats milk soap. I was going for a beet red color, more of a dark red purple on white soap. I did use a 1/2 teaspoon of TD for the white. I prefer to use natural colors if possible. The top design in red is near the desired color, despite some soda ash. As you can see, the feather and the bottom edges of the red color turned brown. Now I made color samples mixing various amounts of Himalayan rhubarb infused oil, and indigo infused oil. I did place this in an oven warmed to 170 and then turned off, and I thought gel would be a good think for the color I was going for, actually red beet color on a milky white soap. The same issue happened to the color samples which were a plain white soap with no goat's milk. At about 48 hours, they too turned brown underneath, even though they were only 20 cc, and so small I did not think they would "gel". The only way I can explain this is gel phase, and heat. Any ideas? Either I could place this soap in the freezer, and refrigerator to avoid gel, OR I think change my base soap recipe and leave out the goat's milk. I was really surprised by this brown color result. I also see some glycerin rivers. Surprise surprise, not always what you expect. Ready to try again. WhatsApp Image 2025-10-21 at 06.47.06_e51c8c43.webp
 

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Saponification produces heat, and usually colors will morph and not be the same during the heated saponification. That definitely looks like what happened here.

When you add heat or not, saponification itself causes most colors to morph in cold process soap.
 
Saponification produces heat, and usually colors will morph and not be the same during the heated saponification. That definitely looks like what happened here.

When you add heat or not, saponification itself causes most colors to morph in cold process soap.
Thank you. Now I'm trying to modify to plan the next attempt.
 
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