Botanical Soap Color Index
Natural Plant-Based Colorants for Soap
Coloring soap naturally is one of the most fascinating parts of handmade soapmaking. Plants, herbs, spices, and a few natural minerals can create a surprising range of colors in cold process soap—from soft creams and warm yellows to deep purples and dramatic blacks.
Over the years I’ve experimented with many botanical colorants while writing The Natural Soap Color Palette and teaching my Extracting Color from Nature classes. This page is a growing index of natural colorants used in soap along with links to articles and experiments exploring how they behave in real recipes.
If you enjoy experimenting with natural soap color, this index will help you quickly explore different botanical ingredients and the colors they can produce.
Get the Botanical Soap Color Chart
Want a quick reference for natural soap colors? The Botanical Soap Color Chart is included inside the free Soapy Friends Starter Kit.
Create your free account to get instant access to the chart, plus additional soapmaking guides, labels, tools, and resources you can use as you keep learning.
The chart includes natural colorants used in soapmaking, with helpful notes about how they’re commonly prepared and used.
Print it out, hang it in your soap room, and use it as a guide while experimenting with botanical soap colors.
Natural Soap Colors by Botanical Ingredient
Click a color section below to explore the botanical ingredients that can create those shades in soap, along with related articles and classes that demonstrate the techniques. As new experiments and articles are published, they will be added here so this index continues to grow.
Several plant roots can create beautiful pink through deep red tones in soap.
Common botanical red colorants include madder root, Himalayan rhubarb, and yellow dock. Depending on the extraction method and soap recipe, these botanicals can produce shades ranging from soft pink to rich mauve.
Red more about natural reds:
Why Natural Red Soap Colors Are So Hard to Get Right (And What Actually Helps)
Learn the Techniques:
Extracting Color from Nature Series
Blushin Roses Master Class
Warm orange tones can be created with several botanical ingredients including foods and seed infusions.
Examples include carrot purée, paprika, Indian madder, and annatto seeds. These ingredients can produce colors ranging from light yellow to deep orange depending on how they are prepared and used in soap.
Red more about natural orange:
Carrot Purée Soap: Natural Yellow to Orange Soap Color
Learn the Techniques:
Extracting Color from Nature Series
Earth’s Song Master Class
Yellow tones often come from spices and seed pigments.
Turmeric and annatto are two of the most common botanical yellow colorants used in soap. These ingredients can create shades ranging from soft buttery yellow to golden orange. Other options include carrots and clays.
Learn the Techniques:
Extracting Color from Nature Series
Earth’s Song Master Class
Many leafy herbs contain pigments that can create green soap, although the majority of them fade very quickly, often before the soap has finished curing.
Common examples include nettle, spirulina, chlorella, and other green herbal powders. These ingredients can create beautiful shades of green initially, but the color often softens or fades as the soap cures.
One exception is alfalfa, which tends to have a bit more staying power than many other green herbs.
Because green botanicals are so prone to fading, I often recommend blending green colorants to create more stable shades. In fact, blending botanicals to create reliable greens was one of the main focuses of my original Natural Soap Color Palette book.
Learn the Techniques:
Extracting Color from Nature Series
Earth’s Song Master Class
True blue is rare in nature, but indigo is one of the most reliable botanical colorants available to soapmakers.
Indigo can produce shades ranging from soft blue to deep navy depending on the amount used and how it is incorporated into the soap batter.
Learn the Techniques:
Extracting Color from Nature Series
All Ways Indigo – Master Class
Alkanet root is often the first botanical soapmakers explore for purple tones. When infused in oil, it can produce beautiful shades ranging from soft gray-purple to deeper violet depending on the recipe and infusion strength. However, alkanet isn’t the only way to create purple soap, and it’s often very challenging for many soapers.
Through experimentation while developing The Natural Soap Color Palette, I discovered that color blending can produce an even wider range of purples. By combining botanical pigments thoughtfully, you can create shades that range from soft lavender to rich royal purple.
This approach eventually led me to develop my anti-alkanet powder, a custom botanical blend I created while writing The Natural Soap Color Palette. The blend was designed to help soapmakers achieve consistent lavender and purple tones using botanical ingredients without relying solely on alkanet infusions.
Blending botanicals opens up a much broader palette of purple tones and is one of my favorite ways to explore natural soap color.
Learn the Techniques:
Extracting Color from Nature Series
Anti-Alkanet (and Alkanet) Master Class
Activated charcoal is commonly used to create gray to black soap.
In addition to providing color, charcoal is often used to create dramatic contrast in swirls and layered soap designs.
Read more about charcoal: Learn How to Make Charcoal Soap (and how much to use for shades of gray to black)
Learn the Techniques:
Extracting Color from Nature Series
A Note About Natural Clays
While this index focuses primarily on botanical colorants, clays are another natural way to color soap and are often used alongside plant-based colorants.
For a long time I avoided clays because many commercial “colored clays” were actually white kaolin clay mixed with synthetic dyes. It was frustrating trying to find authentic natural clays.
Eventually I discovered Rainforest Chica, who sources beautiful natural clays that have become a favorite among Soapy Friends. You’ll find several videos on my YouTube channel exploring how to use clays safely and effectively in soap.
How Botanical Soap Colors Work
Many plant pigments must first be extracted before they can be used in soap.
Soapmakers commonly extract color using oil infusions, herbal teas or decoctions, and botanical powders or slurries. Each plant behaves a little differently during saponification, which is why testing and experimentation are an important part of working with natural soap colorants.
If you’d like to learn these techniques step-by-step, the Extracting Color from Nature classes walk through the methods I use to create botanical soap colors in real recipes.
Explore a Full Rainbow of Natural Soap Colors
This botanical color index will continue to grow as I explore natural colorants in my Year of the Rainbow series at Soapy Friends. Each month we experiment with different botanical ingredients to create the full spectrum of natural soap colors—from reds and oranges to blues and purples. Members can watch the live soapmaking sessions, see the results of the experiments, and follow along as we test botanical colorants together.
How to Disperse Soap Colorants: Oil, Water, Alcohol, and More
Why Is It So Difficult to Color Soap Purple? Alkanet and Natural Purple Soap Alternatives
Natural Purple Soapmaking Class Replay
Natural Green Soap Colors: Why They’re Tricky and What Makes Them Work
Natural Blue Indigo Ombre Soap (Video)
Hot Process Indigo Soap Rebatch Tutorial (Video)
Choosing the Correct Indigo for Natural Blue Soap
Calendula Soap: Natural Pale Yellow Soap with Calendula Infusion (Video)
Want to Go Deeper with Natural Soap Colors?
If you love experimenting with botanical soap colors, you may enjoy becoming a Soapy Friends member. Members get access to my full library of soapmaking classes, including the Extracting Color from Nature series, my Soapy Color Kit Masterclasses, a Full Natural Rainbow, and ongoing experiments where we explore soap science every month!
Frequently Asked Questions About Botanical Soap Colors
Quick Summary
- Natural soap colors can come from plants, minerals, and certain foods.
- Many botanical pigments must be extracted before they are added to soap. Learn more about these techniques in the Extracting Color from Nature classes.
- Different plants produce different color ranges depending on the extraction method and soap recipe.
- This index will continue to grow as new botanical color experiments are published.