Making and coloring natural soap

So my mom and I learned how to make cold-process soap a while ago, and over Christmas break, we made another batch, but it didn't hold the color very well with our synthetic colorant. That's fine, because I don't mind the natural-colored soap. But it DID motivate me to research how to properly color my soap. See, I decided that I'm going to make this my new hobby. I have my beadwork, but sometimes a girl just needs to rest her hands a bit! So soap it is!

In this path of colorant discovery, I'm realizing that I really don't want to use commercial/synthetic/mass-produced colorants. I want to go natural. I've always wanted to keep my soaps as natural as possible, so I like the idea of using things like kelp powder or paprika or alkanet to color my soaps instead of mica powders or waxes. Plus, soap gets washed down the drain. I want my oceans to be there in 20 years, thanks.

I've realized that I want to buy some of these herbs fresh, dry them myself (hello delicious-smelling apartment!), and then use a mortar and pestle to grind them up to a powder for coloring. This is a great, simple post on using a mortar and pestle: http://cutemojo.com/2012/05/how-to-use-a-mortar-and-pestle-to-make-powders/

What I'd like to try, especially for swirling, is pull out a small amount of the soap once it traces, then color it with the powder, then swirl it into the main mixture and pour into the molds. I've seen it done, I'm just not sure how strong the powders will be. Fun experiment though, and it's not like it will ruin the soap if it doesn't color it deeply enough.

In my Internet vortex, (I have 25 tabs open right now! eek!) I learned that infusing herbs into oils before I use them in my soaps is another great way to increase color: http://www.lovinsoap.com/2011/07/color-soap-naturally-infusing-oil-with-herbs-and-spices/

And then, depending on the herb, I may put slightly larger pieces (like seed-sized pieces) into the soap at trace for either an exfoliant or just decoration. So there you have it, a three-fold way of increasing the herb presence in my soaps AND colors, the natural way.