in my never-ending quest for safe, natural, vegan colours for lip balms and cosmetics, i have found alkanet (alkanna tinctoria)! very interesting. gives a great, ruby colour that seems to actually stay, and not just give the appearance of colour to a product before it goes on your face in a disappointing way. i'm trying to find solid safety info, but have only found the usual, general stuff - and as always, the non-specific info for pregnant and lactating women. boooo.
http://www.aussiesoapsupplies.com.au/alkanet-root-powder.html (this is where i bought the powder)
check out my (totally not creepy) pics below; i emptied 4 tea bags, filled each with 2-4 teaspoons of alkanet powder (they infuse better if you don't over fill them), and put them in a small, heat proof pyrex bowl with about 100ml sunflower oil. then i put this bowl over a small saucepan of simmering water on the lowest stovetop heat possible (use a diffuser if you can, and keep an eye that the water in the saucepan doesn't totally evaporate). they've been infusing for about 2 hours at this point: i will take the bags out, make new ones and infuse the new bags in the existing oil for another couple of hours for maximum concentration. when i'm happy with the process, i might scale it up and not pack tea bags- just put the oil and powder in the pyrex bowl over the saucepan with water, and strain the lot through a small funnel lined with coffee filter paper when i'm done.
excitement!
the next workshop at CERES is this sunday 15 september- click to book, as there are 3 places left if you're keen to try out this new ingredient!
later that day...:
tried the direct powder in oil infusion, same quantities and time, then filtered through a paper coffee filter.
the colour ends up pretty much the same- 3-4 hours seems to max the colour out regardless of method.
the top smear is from the tea bag infusion; the bottom, from the direct infusion. there is more powder matter left in the tea bag infusion (might be because i squished the bags too hard and they exploded a bit), but the coffee filter method is a bit slow when you're waiting for the oil to seep through. will cover it and give it a gentle press in the morning.
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