Goats Milk and Individual Bars Mold

This was an interesting experiment.  I've always done cold process soap in a log mold or a slab mold, the slab mold for goats milk soaps to help keep the soap cool.

I just received this oval shaped mold from Brambleberry and was excited to use it.  Something about a rounded soap is intriguing to me; it's different from my norm.  I made a recipe using goats milk, lard, olive, coconut, lanolin, and castor oils and scented with a mix of Lavender essential oil and a touch of Clove essential oil....suggestion of the hubby.

I tried coloring with some left over wax chips I had from when I first started soaping (I'd actually made a nice purple soap once using these wax chips before moving to oxides and micas).  Since this is just for us I'm not worried about the colorant choice.  The purple color did not turn out even in the pot.  I had to grab a couple blue color chips to make it look alright and even then the color turned a gungy green as I blended.  

I wanted to swirl Copper mica in the soap too but the muddied color didn't turn out well though you can see some of the coppery colorant.  In prepping the mold I added a dusting of the copper to each mold so the sparkle would show at least on the top of each soap at least.  Cold process doesn't show sparkle like clear products which is fine....the dusting may be a good idea in the future, I can see the potential here.

My issue again....not adding colors and swirling early enough in the soaping process.  I waited too long to separate the soap to color so by the time I poured the soap it was at a reasonably thick trace, this is much harder to get into these individual molds!

I glopped the soap in as best I could, spread the soap out over the tops, banged the mold on the counter hoping to fill in all the gaps and then crossed my fingers.  It's ugly but it smells nice and will be a good recipe I hope.  Can't wait to try it out.

I feel like a beginner again!  I'm blending my soap to fast, getting it to trace quickly and then having issues with trying to swirl colors because of the thick trace.  I need to slow down and work with the thin trace in order to get the quality pours I've had in the past.