When you want to add a bit of colour to something, there’s a lot to consider. What colour do you want? Do you want opacity along with the colour? How long do you want the colour to last? What is the end use of the product? And let’s not forget the all-important solubility. I often get questions about using one colourant instead of another in recipes, so I thought I’d write an overview on the different types of colourants I use, why I choose them, and what they’re best suited for.
Clays
Solubility: Insoluble
Colours available: More natural shades of brown, beige, green, pink, red, and white
Will they oxidize or fade? Not in my experience
Potency: Depends on the clay, but generally somewhere below oxides and above botanicals
I love clay, and I’ll add it to pretty much anything if given the opportunity for slip (in soap), cleansing, moisture management, and (of course) colour. There are a lot of different clays out there, but when we’re talking clay for colour we’re usually talking about Australian and French clays. They’re available in a variety of muted tones (with the outlier of crazy dark Australian Reef Red), and smooth and light, making them innocuous additions to many things (grittier clays like bentonite or rhassoul are generally not good clays to use as colourants unless you’re looking for something brown/grey and scrubby).
Something to keep in mind with clays is that their colour is prone to shifting when wet. If you’ve ever applied a clay face mask you’ll know what I’m talking about. For this reason clays are not generally suited to applications where they’ll go from wet to dry.
Another consideration with clays is the possible variation within the clay category. I’ve heard from several readers that the Australian Red Reef clay they’ve purchased for my Red Rose Lipstick is not the same colour as mine, and does not produce the same colour of lipstick. Whenever something is natural and not produced specifically for its colour, this is a concern. I’ve also found clays seem to have more variation in appearance depending on lighting.
I tend to use clays for colour mostly in soaps. Since I almost always add clay to my soaps it’s an easy way to add colour without any extra ingredients. Clays also hold their colour through saponification.
Other places I’ll use clays for colour is in cosmetics. I have several lipstick recipes that are powered entirely by blends of red/pink/beige clays, and they’re quite lovely. Because they’re in an oil base the clay doesn’t dry out and shift colours or go splotchy once applied. I’ve tried lip stain/lip gloss type applications with clays, but they end up drying out, powdering up, and looking (and feeling) terrible on the skin. And while you can make lipsticks with clay, I do find I prefer to make them with oxides and carmine—you can get much brighter colours, and a much wider range of them. You can also be guaranteed to get the same colour blend every time.
When I use clays in powders like blushes I find I always have to supplement the colour with oxides to get the colour concentration required, even if the clay used is an excellent match for the colour I want. Once it’s been mixed with other ingredients it’s just not strong enough to hold its own.
Oxides
Solubility: Insoluble
Colours available: Natural shades of brown, green, teal, black, red, green, and yellow
Will they oxidize or fade? No
Potency: Very potent, even in small amounts
Iron oxides are a fantastic arrow in your colour quiver. They are potent, consistent, insoluble, smooth, light, inexpensive, and reliable. They don’t fade over time, and they pack a serious colour punch in tiny amounts. They can be added to finished formulas that need just a hint of colour without effecting the final product.
Iron oxides occur naturally as what is basically rust, but heavy metal contamination is a concern. Therefore, the oxides we purchase are synthesized. They’re chemically identical to their naturally occurring cousins, but they don’t contain dangerous heavy metals.
I use oxides in a lot of recipes. They’re great in soaps because you only need a tiny amount, they hold true through saponification, and they don’t fade as the soap ages. They’re brilliant for tinting lip balms without effecting the texture of the final product. Where they really shine, though, is in cosmetics of all varieties.
The potency of oxides simply cannot be replaced in cosmetics. For anything that contains titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, and/or sericite mica (USA / Canada), you need the potency of oxides to get yourself a final product that isn’t mostly white. The stability of oxides is also a must-have, as I don’t know anybody who likes discovering their carefully colour-matched concealer is a completely different colour a week or so after making it. And because oxides are the same colour every time you buy a jar, you can rest assured that your carefully blended colour formulations will hold true over time.
Ultramarines
Solubility: Insoluble
Colours available: Vibrant shades like cobalt blue and bright lavender
Will they oxidize or fade? No
Potency: Very potent, even in small amounts
Ultramarines are pretty much the same as oxides when it comes to how we use them, they are just synthesized from different ingredients. The blue is the synthetic version of lapis lazuli, a very expensive semi-precious stone from Afganistan that used to be our sole source of bright blue pigment. We figured out how to synthesize it in the early 1820’s, and now ultramarines are synthesized from ingredients like sulfur, clay, and charcoal. The bright blue pigment is irreplaceable (without using FD&C dyes) and is fantastic in blends with carmine to create beautiful purple hues.
Micas
Solubility: Insoluble
Colours available: All the colours of the rainbow
Will they oxidize or fade? No
Potency:Â Fairly low
Micas are fine, shimmery powders that pack a strong sparkly punch. They’re available in all the colours of the rainbow because they are coloured with oxides and FD&C dyes, so not all micas are all that natural (check the INCI of each colour/variety to see how it is pigmented).
I find micas offer a strong colour punch to the appearance of a product, like a tube of lip balm, but the colour isn’t strong enough to make much of a difference on the skin. I’ll usually pair them with some iron oxides if I want a strong colour to come through in the end product.
Dyes & Liquid Oils
Solubility: Varies
Colours available:Â Varies, depending on how natural you want to keep things
Will they oxidize or fade? Varies
Potency: Varies
This is a category with a lot of variation.
If you’re ok with FD&C dyes you can get any colour of the rainbow and it’ll last forever. I’ve worked with a couple of the powdered FD&C dyes, and they work very much like iron oxides do. They’re insoluble, highly potent, and generally much brighter; an FD&C yellow will be a true, bright yellow while yellow iron oxide is browner and muddier. If you like super vibrant colours, they work really well.
New Directions Aromatics sells a few shades of natural liquid dyes. They’re derived from things like spinach and spices, and are water soluble. I’ve only tried the orange, and I’ve found it to be useful in CP soaps and lip stain. I have, however, noticed that it is a bit reminiscent of the paprika it’s derived from in the scent/taste department. I can’t speak for the other colours as I haven’t tried them, but you could find the green is a bit spinach-y. I’d recommend doing your research an reading the reviews before committing to anything.
For oils, the colours you’ll come across most often are greens and oranges. Raw hemp seed oil (USA / Canada) is quite green and will lend a green tint to lotions and body butters, but it isn’t strong enough to colour the skin. Buriti oil and seabuckthorn are two orange oils, with buriti being the strongest of the two. Buriti is so orange that it’s almost impossible to use as anything but a colourant–straight application to the skin will have you looking like a pumpkin quite promptly. I love using buriti oil in soap to get yellows and oranges (depending on how much I add). Seabuckthorn oil varies in strength (the berry oil is more potent than the seed oil), and can vary from giving an orange tint to balms and soaps to giving you an orange tint.
Carmine
Solubility: Water soluble, oil dispersable
Colours available: Bright, vibrant red/pink
Will it oxidize or fade? No
Potency: Extremely strong
Carmine is amazing and completely irreplaceable in the natural world (FD&C Red No 7 is a fairly close colour match, but it is insoluble so you cannot use it anywhere we need carmine’s water solubility). It’s a bright pink/red and packs an exceptionally potent punch. Just a small amount of the powdered stuff mixed with some water and glycerin gives you an unbeatable lip and cheek stain. A few drops of the liquid dye gives you a beautiful tinted lip balm, and more can be added for a stronger tint. It is quite pricey by the gram, but it’s much lighter than the oxides, so in the end it’s not quite as awful as you get a larger volume for the price.
Now, carmine is not vegan—it’s made from the cochineal insect. If you’re vegan and/or grossed out by this (or can’t afford it), I’m afraid I can’t really offer you a natural alternative. In tinted lip balms you can use a bit of red iron oxide instead, but the colour won’t be quite as vibrant. I’m afraid you are out of luck for water soluble alternatives, though.
Botanicals (Beet root powder, rose hip extract, etc.)
Solubility: Water soluble
Colours available: Natural shades of red, pink, beige, brown, green, etc.
Will they oxidize or fade? Yes
Potency: Low
I want to love botanicals for colourants, but they are pretty darn useless. They’re water soluble, but once mixed with water they oxidize quite rapidly, eventually leaving you with a brownish grey final product. They’re also not very potent, meaning you can’t really use them in anything that contains ingredients like titanium dioxide or sericite mica (USA / Canada). In soap they tend to dramatically shift colour during saponification, generally turning brown or black. The best uses I’ve found for botanicals as a colourant is in bath salts/Â bath bombs as they’ll colour the dry product and then dissolve into nothing in the tub. You can also infuse them into oils and then strain out the solids. This will give you a nicely coloured oil (makes for nice tinted lip balms) that has fairly low colour transfer to the skin. Do watch out for scent/flavour transfer, though! I’d also recommend keeping these infused oils in formulations that don’t use any water to avoid oxidization.
Honestly, when it comes to botanicals I’d save your money. I haven’t found them to be hugely useful (or essential, at least) for much of anything.
This post was updated November 29, 2016.
Marie – This post is beyond amazing. Thank you for such helpful information. This is definitely bookmarked!
Thanks, Erin! 🙂
This is excellent info, thank you! It’s so helpful and well written…You’re brilliant. Have you ever mixed mica w/ carmine, results any good?
Hi Tirzah! I have—you get sparkly red/pink 😛 I’d recommend an application like this rather than lip stain as the mica will settle out of a thinner solution.
First time commenter, long-time reader. Great post! I’ve just gotten started making beauty/bath supplies at home, and your blog has been SO incredibly useful, you have no idea. One thing I started experimenting with recently is using botanicals to infuse oil, and then using the oil as the “dye” in the product. Some work, some don’t AT ALL. Paprika oil makes any finished product smell like pizza (downside!) but I’ve had great luck with using alkanet-infused oil and turmeric-infused oil in things. I’ve used a few tablespoons of alkanet-infused grapeseed oil as part of the liquid component in whipped body butters to produce a lovely raspberry pink, and am excited to try it in lip balms to see if they’ll turn into tinted lip gloss.
Hi Kristina! I’m SO in love with alkanet right now 🙂 I think you’ll like my next recipe 😉 Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me!
Great article! I have bookmarked this for future reference. 🙂
I do feel that annatto seeds deserve a mention, though – I infuse them in oil for a lovely yellow to orange color in my soap. Color hasn’t faded, even after more than a year. Other botanicals, such as spirulina, can start off beautiful, but typically fade to a sad brown….
Thanks, Elizabeth! I’ll have to keep an eye out for some to play with 🙂
Thanks for all your amazing posts!! This is yet another awesome guide that I can check back on when I’m spending way too much time on your website 🙂
I’m wondering if it would be possible to have a page at some point that lists all of your recipes in one basic layout (e.g. just the link and it’s overall category like lotion). I use your index bar/archives on the side, but when I click on “lotion” I still have to hunt through multiple pages and pictures to see all the options.
Thanks!
Liz
Thanks, Liz!
I’ve been looking for a plug in that will automatically generate such a page, but I haven’t had much luck so far :/ I’m sure it’s out there, I just need to find it. Thanks for the suggestion!
What a fantastic article. I love how much research you do. You’re the perfect combination of nerdy chemist and designer cosmetician. I have a lot of respect for what you’re doing.
I just wanted to mention that you always want to avoid real cobalt for blue colours, as well as avoid any cadmiums, they are quite toxic and their effects are cumulative.
Thanks, Kathy! And yes, let’s not slowly poison ourselves!
Is there a printer friendly version of this article?
If you copy and paste it into a word processor that should do the trick 🙂 I have yet to find a suitable plug-in for offering printer friendly versions of my posts.
Dee, there’s an app called “Printer Friendly” @ printer friendly.com you can download to make any article/recipe, etc. printer friendly. I LOVE this app!! AND, you don’t have to print everything.You have the options to make it PDF Formatted. Also, you don’t HAVE to print it out, although I print it out WAAAAYYY too often and have the gazillion printed papers [all over the house] to prove it!! I love this app!
There’s also a green print friendly button at the bottom of every post 🙂
Great post, Marie!
I would like to add a couple of things about oils.
Unrefined avocado oil will impart a nice color on your lip balm without leaving your lips green! And I love to use red Palm oil to make orange colored soap. For me, this is cheaper than the white sort, since I can get it at my local Asian store.
For soap I also like sweet paprika powder, it gives a antique pink color. The thing to mind with coloring soap is that not all colorants do well in an alkaline mixture so the final result may vary.
Thanks, Mrs G! I did chat about soap colourants more here, if you want to check it out 🙂
This was an amazing overview, thanks so much! I’m planning on adding opaque color to my lip balms and I was overwhelmed about how to pick colors that will get my desired result. This definitely helps 🙂
Thanks, Lauren! Happy to help 🙂
Dear Marie,
This is an incredible post!! Very very helpful. You are fantastic. I am taking a skincare class right now and this very same question was asked in the forum. May I copy this link in our forum?
Thanks, Carol! Always feel free to share links to my posts 🙂
Thank you for this brilliant reference guide!
♡ Dulce
You’re welcome! Enjoy 🙂
Very very very informative! Thank you so much!
Thanks! Enjoy 🙂
Thanks for the valuable info. I’m a new subscriber and a very new soaper with only 3 batches of CP under my belt. Having resources like you contributes to my joie de vivre every single day.
Thanks, Mel! You might also like this article specifically on colouring CP soap 🙂
I just went through all this finalizing a mineral makeup workshop that I will be offering in the summer. Love everything about this article (and the blog in general!)
Thanks, Paula!
Great post! Alkanet root powder is my all natural colourant for a lovely lavender to purple hue on soaps. And it doesn’t fade over time 🙂
Hey Annie, have you ever tried it in a gloss or lip balm…? Results or thoughts? Just curious…thanks a bunch!
🙂
I love alkanet root powder! Stay tuned for a recipe using it coming out soon 😉
The timing of this post was so coincidental. I had left a review on [a purchasing website] for an indigo powder I had recently bought. It was a great powder that received a great review from me. Someone asked how I used it in the soap I made. In my reply I mentioned that I had added white kaolin clay and titanium dioxide. Then came a comment about the titanium dioxide and it’s comparison to DDT and Agent Orange (gro-o-oan)! Keeping you in mind, I tried to respond to this other person with as much grace and consideration as possible (you are incredibly gracious and tactful when it comes to critical replies, replies from know-it-all’s and people like me who are still learning). I have read as much as I could find on the use of titanium dioxide, particularly in soaps, and have found nothing harmful in it’s use as a pigment as long as I myself don’t inhale a lungful of dust. I can’t/won’t perpetuate the fear mongering of people who haven’t done their homework on ingredients, that’s why I’m glad there are people like you who DO do their homework, so THANK YOU for all your work, investigating and studying so we can all feel confident in what we do. It’s appreciated very much.
Thanks, Deb! I’m certainly not all-knowing but I try to be humble (heh) and learn as much as I can about everything, and share it wherever I can 🙂 And I’m starting to feel like comparisons to Agent Orange in the DIY beauty/body world are like comparisons to Hitler in politics… generally a bit too extreme lol.
Hey Marie!
Just curious as to which couple of the clays you’ve ever used are your favourite? I’m placing an order with NDA soon but am stumped! They have too many clays and I don’t want to overbuy!
Which ones do you find you use the most?
I find I use French Green and Kaolin far more than any others 🙂
Do you use lipsticks made out of oxides often? Will oxides make lips darker?
I don’t wear lipstick often at all, but oxides should not darken the lips over time. They are insoluble, and while very potent, I’ve never noticed them absorbing into the skin.
hi, for a red lipstick what colourant do you prefer most?
Red iron oxide is the most reliable red you’ll find (in terms of purchasing it from different sources), though the red/pink clays are also fun to play with. I don’t have a strong preference between clays and oxides, but I know some readers have found their red clays are quite different from mine and give a result other than what they were expecting.
Hi,
I am a newbie at this and just starting I have learned so much from you and want to say thank you for all the hard work you put into everything you do :). I have a question_ I want to start with body butters and was wondering if I can use Micas in them? Thanks again!
You’re very welcome, Donna 🙂 You can definitely add micas to body butters; they’ll colour the butter and leave a soft shimmer on your skin 🙂
Awesome 🙂 thank you so much! It’s a good thing you don’t live next door or I would probably wear out your door bell _ LOL!
Ha! As long as you brought cookies I’d probably be ok with it 😉
Hi! Amazing blogs. We really learn a lot. I have question, how do i lighten the colors of my homemade water based lip and cheek tints? Any that will add opacity and matte effect will be great. Thank you so much and more power!
Titanium dioxide would probably be the best place to start, but given it is insoluble I’m not confident it will perform well.
Question about sourcing Australian black clay
Hello Marie! I have been a big fan for years and pre-ordered your eBook which I use and recommend often. Suddenly I am unable to source Australian black clay! Can you help? Where do you get yours? Do you know anyone who ships? I am is a big need for a large project. Looking for 1/2 – 1 lb, am happy to purchase in 100 gr packages, whatever. Help! Please
Hello Barbara!
Unfortunately, Australian Black Clay is not really something that is much used and has only made one appearance in a mascara recipe. Have you attempted to contact your supplier to see if they would let you know where they bought theirs?
Greetings from Finland!
I’ve been doing some liquid shampoo and emulsified conditioner and noticed how the different oils or herbal teas affect the color of the end product. I love moringa oil in hair care, but with rose tea and lactic acid it makes an awful, kind of brown orange color. Nettle turns into greyish, moldy green etc. It’s mostly ok for me, but to patches I make to friends and family I’d really like to have a little less.. icky color.
Do you have any suggestions, that would work with a liquid product but wouldn’t stain? Don’t want to dye their hair
Hey Marie,
I would like to start by saying WOW so much helpful information, thank you for your time.
I started making my body butter and for color, I used mica powder. I’m a med/dark-complected woman who used the finished product with no complaints. My fairer-skinned friend used the product it left a slight color on her skin and did the same to her socks. I’m wondering if this is a formulation problem, if I’m using too much color, or if she just is applying too much product at once and/or not giving it the proper time to absorb.
If you could give me any advice I’d love to hear it 🙂
Hi Jas! It would be some combination of too much colour + formulation. Harder formulations can often have more colour because they’re difficult to over-apply, while less mica is usually a better idea for softer formulations. It could also be the specific mica as some are more pigmented than others.
The mica will never absorb into the skin, so that’s not a factor.
Happy making!
Re: Botanicals, and fastness.
What’s your take on Aker Fassi? It’s a Moroccan lipstick made from botanicals, and it’s apparently pretty intense.