Soap Colorant Calculator

Colorant dosing in cold process soap is conventionally expressed per pound of oil rather than per bar, since the amount of soap you're coloring — not the number of bars it becomes — determines how much pigment is needed for even color. This calculator converts your oil weight from ounces to pounds, then applies one of three built-in usage rates: micas at roughly 1 teaspoon per pound (about 3 g/tsp), oxides at about 0.5 teaspoon per pound (denser, at roughly 4 g/tsp, since oxides tint more strongly per unit weight), or liquid dye at an equivalent of 1 mL per pound. Each of those base rates is then multiplied by an intensity factor — 0.5× for a light/pastel result, 1.0× for medium/standard color, or 2.0× for a dark, saturated finish — before converting to grams via the colorant's grams-per-teaspoon figure.

For liquid dye specifically, it also reports the amount in milliliters directly, since liquid colorants are normally measured by volume rather than weighed. A rough cost estimate is layered on top using flat per-gram price assumptions ($0.50/g for mica, $0.30/g for oxide, $0.20/g equivalent for liquid dye) — useful for budgeting but not tied to any real-time pricing, since actual mica, oxide, and dye prices vary by supplier and purchase quantity. Because these are generic averages across a wide range of commercial mica and oxide products, actual pigment strength varies by brand and specific colorant; the safest approach the calculator's own guidance echoes is to start at the low end of intensity and add more only if needed, since it's far easier to deepen a soap's color after the fact than to lighten an over-colored batch.