Cosmetic Trivia: Why Kojic Soaps are Orange in Color?
Monday, February 17, 2020
Image Credit: Kojie San
In the Philippines,
one of the most popular skin lightening soaps in the market is Kojic soap (the
other one is Glutathione soap). It’s so easy to spot them in beauty stores due
to their attention-grabbing dark orange color. I used to be a fan of Kojic soap
because it’s really effective in reducing skin hyperpigmentation with daily
use. However, I’m not a big fan of Kojic soap’s orange residue on our bathroom
tiles and soap dish. Because of that, I decided to go to several groceries and
beauty stores in search of plain white Kojic soap and to my surprise I
saw none.
After further
research, it turns out that there is a reason why orange is the favorite color
of choice for Kojic soaps. It’s because Kojic
Acid – the primary ingredient for making Kojic soaps, tends to oxidize
easily when exposed to light and heat. The oxidation of Kojic acid causes the
soap to have brown and/or orange discolorations. Because consumers wouldn’t
like to buy soaps with brown/orange spots, soap makers have decided to just
camouflage the discoloration with darker colorants. Of course, they can just
use any dark colors like black or brown but these colors are not that
aesthetically appealing to the consumers. Eventually, orange becomes the
official color of Kojic soaps. I believe this is due to the fact that the
orange color is often associated to papaya soap which is also a popular skin
lightening soap in the Philippines.
P.S.
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