When Beetroot Failed as a Colorant

Working with plants as colorants is both an interesting and enlightening experience.

Pictured above: handcrafted soapy-lotion bars (I haven’t come up with an exact term for this type of product yet) that gently cleanse and moisturize all at once.

Count that part of this formula a success.

Now, when we look at the color, it’s a whole other story. Below: one of the bars from this batch – a mere 28 days later.

Uhm, Where’s the Color?

It can’t be denied that the color has decided to bow out of this formula and take a hike to another dimension. And even though this is a textbook example of perfectly failed color stability, these bars still perform beautifully.

The colorant used here was beetroot. With some ingredient combinations, beetroot will play real nice, while with other (almost identical) ingredient combinations, beetroot just won’t play nice at all.

Beetroot can be awfully funny that way.

Next time we look at beetroot as a colorant will be in a formula that was unexpectedly successful.