Of course, I was in turmoil! I needed a purple colour for my wax melts, but I had nothing on hand in the way of natural dyes to achieve that hue. My ADHD brain was insistent on making this batch of wax melts since they were the last ones on my list. But what to do?
I had red, but no blue. So, I turned to good old research tools, which led me to the idea of using blackberries. Luckily, I have a lovely blackberry bush in my garden—yay!
After more research, I discovered that I couldn't add blackberry juice directly to the wax because water and wax don't mix well. However, I learned that I could use blackberry powder, which would work just fine, especially since I didn’t mind any residue in the melt. It was game on!
Next, I needed to make the powder. I found out that I could boil blackberries in water until I achieved the desired colour, then strain them, reduce them to a syrup, and finally dry them. But could I find my food dehydrator? Nope!
So, I smeared the syrup onto baking paper and placed it in the oven at 108 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes. When it came out, it had formed sticky shards, which made me think it might need more time.
I used my pestle and mortar to grind it down and then placed the powder in a jar with a couple of packets of silica gel. A day later, it was looking drier, and I was quite pleased.
Now it was time to get back to creating the wax melts!
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