So did folks soap this weekend?
The batch I made on Saturday was colored with annatto-seed infused oil, as mentioned on the "swirling with natural colorants" thread last week
Sad to say, I didn't get to do my swirl. I had everything going just fine, had 1 oz of very orange oil set aside to use for my swirl, got to a thin trace... then I added some of the batter to the annatto infusion and got a really dark orange to make my swirl with. "Awesome!" I thought, as I then proceeded to gently add it back to the main pot.
And then I saw my little lonely dish of carefully measured EOs sitting over on the counter.
So, needless to say, I ended up mixing the swirl and everything all together in order to get the scent integrated. *headdesk* On the plus side, it does smell great.
I think when I eventually re-try the swirl, I can safely use less than 1oz of infused oil for color -- this is a 22-oz batch of oils, and you can see how dark it got! A test-wash with one of the end pieces shows that the lather turns out white, so that's a relief. I suppose my super-infusion was a success, even if the plan to swirl was scrapped.
It did look incredibly unappealing before it gelled -- like Velveeta
-- but I think it looks somewhat nicer in person than it does here. ^^; Or maybe the orange scent kind of justifies the alarming color.