Sandalwood Soap

My beloved  hubby was telling me a couple of weeks ago about the first time he smelled a particular scent and how much he liked it.  So I filed that info in the back of my mind and later I ordered that scent--sandalwood--so I could surprise him with this:

Here is my latest soap creation drying in the wire basket I use as rack for my soaps.

I kept the main portion of my soap a natural color.  I colored about a cup or so with brown, then poured that on top of the main soap batch and swirled it in.

I've experimented a good bit--and had a LOT of failures (in terms of coloring and getting the dreaded orange spots)--and have ultimately settled on soaping at room temperature.  I measure my oils, liquid, and lye early in the day.  I then melt the oils and set them aside to cool down.  I also go ahead and mix my lye and liquid (all  if not adding milk to the batch or only half the liquid in water if I am using milk).  This I also leave sitting to cool down.  Several hours later, I go back and add room temperature milk if this batch calls for milk and my oils.  Then I mix it all up to a light trace before adding colors and/or fragrances.  I have chosen to do my coloring first since some fragrances/essential oils accelerate trace and don't leave me enough time to color the way I'd like.

I am currently using an 18 bar plastic soap mold which I spray with cooking spray before pouring the soap batter.  I put my filled soap mold in the fridge til the next morning.  The next day I leave the soap in the mold for several hours before unmolding.  And I leave the unmolded soap sitting out another day before I cut it into bars.

My mold has cutting lines imprinted which makes it easier for me to cut the soap into consistently sized bars.  At some point I'd like hubby to make some wooden loaf molds, but this will do for now.

A close up of the soap...which will be ready for him to use in another week or so.