It’s been a long time since Bath Fizz and Foam has had a color study. Like a really long time! During that interlude a lot of things have changed. Many of the suppliers I used to recommend no longer carry batch certified lakes, and when they do, the price is often astronomical. Even the free trade that previously allowed for easy international shipping has been dampened as the world itself changed in response to political uncertainty. But you know what HASN’T changed? My desire to make the world a more colorful place, and to help you do that too!
During the gap years when no color studies were being written I did a little thing. I started selling lakes through my other company, Scandalous Soap Co. And I’m telling you this for the sake of transparency, not to pimp my own products. It started as me having a dream (like a literal go to sleep and have a dream kind of dream), and turned into me buying lakes by the barrel. Maybe someday I will have even bigger shipments, but for now barrels feel plenty big.
So of course I have a vested interest in people using lakes, I think that goes without saying. But my love for lakes goes back even further, and my desire to teach you how to make your own color blends supersedes everything. I want you to have the tools you need to be able to color your own bath bombs, and to feel confident in doing so. Even if you never buy a single lake from Scandalous, I want these color studies to be able to guide you using the colors that you do have at your disposal!
Here at Bath Fizz and Foam we have color studies on pretty much every basic color (except yellow). Even if a particular study doesn’t have as much range as you would want, or as many options as you’d prefer, the point of each one is to help you see how certain color combinations behave. That helps you make better choices when it comes to coloring your bath bombs.
For example, in the original Red Color Study we found that you can make red bath bombs using just Red 40, a combination of Red 40 and Red 27, or a combination of Red 27 and Yellow 5. If I wanted a really colorfast red (or I wanted to paint white on the red bath bomb), I would go with Red 40. If I wanted a bright red I would use a combination of Red 40 and Red 27. And if I wanted to create a multi-colored bath bomb and was concerned that the water would be ugly, I would make red using Red 27 and Yellow 5, since both of those behave well with Blue 1. That’s a lot of numbers and colors being thrown around, so it’s fine if I lost you for a second. The take away from this is that knowing how the color families behave together is really important.
One color family (Red 40 and Yellow 6), tends to darken the other family (Red 27, Blue 1 and Yellow 5). That tendency can be avoided or capitalized on depending on your needs. But now we have this new color–or new to the color studies at least–waltzing onto the scene. And her name is Red 33.
Of all the workshops in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
Red 33 has always been on the periphery for me. I’ve had it as both a lake and a dye for ages, but rarely used it. For one thing it’s expensive! But also, since I feel confident enough to manipulate the 5 primary colors and create pretty much ANY color imaginable, it just hasn’t felt that important to me. It’s always been one of those, “it would be nice…” want-versus-need kind of colors… until the liquid bubble bath ebook.
While working on The Ultimate Bubble Bath Ebook I realized that getting pink in clear bubble bath was actually a bit of a challenge. Normally when we want pink in bath bombs or bubble bars we reach for Red 27. Unfortunately, this bright pink color has a natural fluorescence that causes it to look… funky… in clear bath products. Which actually makes sense because I remember noticing Red 27 doing some weird stuff in the jelly soaps too, but since mica could be used with those it wasn’t as big of a deal so I didn’t really dwell on it.
For liquid bubble bath though, this became problematic. Sure, you could use tiny amounts of Red 40 to create a light pink, but if you wanted bright pink you were out of luck. Purple was also taking a hit from this whole Red 27 thing too. Since purple can’t be made with Blue 1 and Red 40 (that combo turns gray/black) and must be made with Blue 1 and Red 27, this meant that our purple liquid bubble bath also had that fluorescence weirdness. And I know this is going to come as a shock–but a lot of people like pink and purple, so something had to be done, and of course that something ended up being Red 33. Fortunately I’d had some laying around and gave it a shot and was chuffed to find it worked so well!
With Red 33 you can get really beautiful pinks and purples in bath bombs, bubble bars, and–of course–liquid bubble bath (and probably jelly soap too now that I think of it!). So that’s how I got a very expensive bucket of Red 33 tacked onto my normal shipment of lake colorants and headed to me for testing–I needed it for science! Once I had thoroughly vetted and batch-certified the color, I released it to sell at Scandalous too, which is cool, sure, now you can buy it, huzzah. But also I want you to get all the bang for your buck because–did I mention it’s expensive? I know I personally had a small jar of it for years, and because of the cost, I had been hesitant to experiment with it. So let me do that for you because if you’re going to have some of this color in your workshop for liquid bubble bath then you’ll want to use it for bath bombs too, and I think it’s only fair that you know how it combines with the other primaries! So let’s get cracking.
For this color study I’m going to be taking a slightly different approach than I have previously done. Because Red 33 is pretty much new to me, having used it only to make pink and purple, I think the best course of action is to study how it interacts with each of the primaries. When we talk about primary lake colors we are referring to Red 40, Red 27, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and Blue 1. They are the most common lakes you will find from suppliers. I really want to know how Red 33 interacts with each of these colors so I can get a better understanding of its properties.
Each of the following blends uses 250 grams of bath bomb mix. In each of the following images, Red 33 is displayed at the top of the circle with the primary being tested shown to the right, then 3 blend saturations going clockwise from least amount of Red 33 to most amount. Every image uses the following measurements:
Red 33: 1/2 tsp (.6 grams)
Primary: 1/2 tsp (.6 grams)
1st Blend: 1/8 tsp Red 33 + 1/2 tsp Primary
2nd Blend: 1/4 tsp Red 33 + 1/4 tsp Primary
3rd Blend: 1/2 tsp Red 33 + 1/8 tsp Primary
Red 33 + Blue 1
The immediate result of adding Red 33 to Blue 1 is that the color begins to darken. Blend 2 continues to exhibit this darkening effect, however the richness of the blue is not dampened. The color turns a very dark purple when The max amount of Red 33 is used. It’s possible that lighter purples than Blend 3 could be achieved if less Blue 1 was used, however I suspect that for the most part this combination will always lead to darker purples.
Red 33 + Yellow 5
The immediate effect of adding Red 33 to Yellow 5 is a darkening of the color. Blend 1 is a rich gold color that is visually very pleasant. Blend 2 is a lovely burnt orange. Blend 3 is a cool-toned, true maroon, which is fairly hard to achieve with the 5 primaries. Overall this is a perfect fall palette in my opinion!
Red 33 + Yellow 6
Because Yellow 6 has a tendency to darken colors I was very curious as to how these two would combine. Blend 1 is a fantastic pumpkin orange that was much brighter than expected. Blend 2 is a burnt sienna color that straddles red and brown. Blend 3 is a rich warm-toned maroon. While I feel that there is less range with this combination versus the Yellow 5 combinations, I do like that the warm, red expression is stronger in these blends.
Red 33 + Red 40
The immediate result of adding a small amount of Red 33 to Red 40 is a rich, ruby red that maintains quite a lot of brightness. Blend 2 begins to exhibit the darkening effect of Red 33 while still holding a fairly true red color. Blend 3 shows a shift to cooler tones as more of the Red 33 is expressed.
Red 33 + Red 27
I’m not gonna lie, this one is weird. Because Red 33 tends to darken colors, Blend 1 feels incongruent to Blends 2 and 3. Blend 1 is a true fuchsia, displaying more pink than purple tones which is why the color appears to be so different from the other blends. As the amount of Red 33 increases in Blend 2, its inherently cool nature begins to come through as an eye-watering neon pink. Blend 3 is simply a deeper version of that neon pink color.
Takeaway…
So what we learned today is that Red 33 tends to darken colors, although sometimes that is expressed as an initial deepening rather than darkening. With the exception of Yellow 6 which maintains it’s warmth, Red 33 tends to make very rich colors with cool undertones. Almost every Blend 3 was a variation of maroon with varying degrees of warmth. This tells us that, once at max saturation, Red 33 doesn’t leave a lot of room for other colors. Its best use will likely be in small quantities with an intended purpose of emphasizing naturally cool tones or to add depth and richness to warm tones.
Caveats
Over the years as I have worked more and more with lakes I have naturally learned a lot about them. One thing previous color studies didn’t really take into account was the dye load present in each of the lakes being used. Even small differences in the percentage of dye load can make a massive difference in the final outcome of a color blend. When Scandalous received a shipment of Red 27 that stated a 2% stronger dye load than my previous version, I spent an entire week in shambles reformulating every lake blend I sell because every color was coming out too pink.
Not every lake is that dramatic, of course that’s a very extreme example. Being able to see colors only hummingbirds can see is one of the reasons I still personally blend every lake Scandalous sells–because I can visually clock those minute changes. But it’s also probably part of the reason that, despite the Bath Fizz and Foam color studies, some people still struggle with blending complex colors like brown and black. While the majority of BFF readers don’t have an issue, I can imagine that it must feel very isolating when you do have one. For that reason I’m going to give you the dye loads of the colors I used. Hopefully, if you come across issues while blending this, or other colors, that will help troubleshoot a little.
The certified dye loads of the lakes I used in this color study are as follows:
Red 33 | 24%
Blue 1 | 26%
Yellow 5 | 24%
Yellow 6 | 25%
Red 40 | 27%
Red 27 | 18%
And of course, we have our Facebook support group that’s always there to help! If you can’t seem to get your colors to blend well, or if you have any questions about the process we used, our Facebook group is the place to get the best answers! And you won’t just get answers from me, but from a whole lot of other helpful makers. While I do know a lot about lakes and color blending, I don’t know everything and you should always use multiple sources of learning whenever possible to give yourself the best opportunity to find a method and solution that works for you!
Happy Making!