Then and Now

Yesterday, I happened to come across an interesting question regarding wheat grass and it's staying power. One person was asking if the beautiful green color that is the result of using wheat grass as a colorant would "stick," and one of the responses to this question was "no-wheat grass has a large amount of chlorophyll in it that keeps it from being a stable colorant (unless is is kept in conditions that do not expose it to light.)"

Backing up a few months, I first spotted wheat grass used as a colorant over at Simply Soap in Australia when she did an experiment using varying amounts of "wheat grass powder" to get different shades of  the most glorious green. I asked her about how it was holding, and if she was noticing the color fading at all and her response at the time was that if there were any fading it was imperceptible, so I went on the hunt for wheat grass powder. Now, wheat grass powder is not an inexpensive means to coloring soap-I'll tell you that right off, but if you're like me and prefer a natural colorant and are infatuated with green-this is a great way to go.

The following are some of my projects in which I used wheat grass powder.

1) Tree Hugger- this was my first go at using wheat grass powder. I wanted a light green,but didn't really get the satisfactory green I was looking for-instead it's a bit towards the olive(which isn't bad-just not what I had envisioned.)

Then-The next trial was a batch of Fir Needle that was first made back in October of 2011. I used a bit more wheat grass and got a more true green that I was looking for-this image has is a bit too light-the green is actually a very pale natural looking green.

"Fir Needle" Oct. 2011

 Fir Needle-Feb. 2012

Now-Here is a bar from the same batch, but taken in February of 2012. The color is more true as the light is much better. I am unable to detect a pronounced difference in the color at this point. The soap is obviously stored out of direct sunlight, but at this point appears to be fairly stable in terms of fading. So, the question is-given more time-will this indeed fade to brown or keep it's glorious green? I'll keep an eye on this a keep you informed of any changes,but so far so good.