Why you no smell?

Dear soapers!
I have been having particular difficulty with scents not only sticking to soap after curing, but not being present even as early as just after unmolding. The last batch of soap I did was done with full precaution with scent in mind - I used 2 tablespoons of clay, I soaped at no higher than 110F, included a good anchor and orange peel, and finally calculated as well as cross-referenced the amount of scent that I was using to be at max possible allowable load. And yet, after sacrificing almost 50lm of essential oils on a 1 kg oil batch of cold process soap, it just smells dusty and like my fragrance free pomace castile soap smells - like soap, with a slight hint of orange. The recipe was palmarosa, orange and patchouli with patchouli being at 15 g and the other two split even. I am starting to wonder if there is maybe something very basic that I missing?
Many thanks,
Silver

Citrus EOs are notorious for not sticking in CP soap. You might try a stronger version such as 15x orange EO.

lsg said:

Citrus EOs are notorious for not sticking in CP soap. You might try a stronger version such as 15x orange EO.

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So I heard, but I figured that they would be gone in a couple of weeks following the curing process - mine just was not there to begin with, right after unmolding, and the palmarosa is also not coming through at all. I have a bottle of 5X orange however, I will use that from now on, thanks for the comment.

I find it unusual that a blend containing 30% patchouli EO does not at least smell like patchouli, even if the citrus EOs fade into oblivion. Speaking of which, I've never had a citrus EO fade by the time I unmolded, either, and palmarosa, well, for good or bad, that one seems to stick around for a while, too. As lsg mentioned, are you using folded (5X, 10X, 15X) orange?

Are the oils coming from a reputable supplier?

(by the way, I meant to comment on your "Nailed It" post but didn't - I found it to be hysterically funny and greatly appreciate your sense of humor!)

ETA: I was posting while you were responding, so didn't see that you have a bottle of 5X orange to try... but that still doesn't account for where the other two scents disappeared to?

I use one oz EO per pound of oil (always check if that is safe first, that would be too strong for something like peppermint), that amount should be fine for the EOs you are using. Orange and other citrus EOs just don't stick. Clays don't help. If it smells musty, one of your base oils or EOs might be bad (but patchouli always smells musty to some people). Lemongrass sticks very well and has a rich lemony scent. Litsea cubeba is another lemon scented EO that sticks better than citrus.

Good luck! I am also waging a stubborn battle with EOs, please share any successes and woes, it's tough but so worth it when they stick

Edit: hey, they beat me to the punch. It takes me forever to type. My computer likes to throw in extra letters whenever I hit the letter 'e'

The scent may come back as your soap cures. You are used to the scent, so you may not notice it. Have someone who hasn't been around the soap give it a sniff to see if they can smell the scent. You might check to make sure that these are 100% essential oils and not adulterated with carrier oil.

It's the pH of the soap that is the enemy of most EOs and fragrance compounds. If the compounds are not stable in high pH, they are going to react and turn into something else that may not smell like anything to us. Sometimes the reaction is reversible. The scent may come back some as the pH drops back closer to neutral but you can't count on it. Anchoring with clay may help protect compounds that are somewhat resistant to alkali but it won't save sensitive compounds like citrus. At the end of the day, you need to test and test again. It might be helpful to try small testers using 1 to 2 g of EOs in an oz or 2 of batter to see how your EO mixes work. It'll save you a lot of money.

Lemongrass and Litsea are composed mostly of citral which survives in cp soap. Unfortunately, about 2% of people are allergic to it. It is also very sensitizing. EOs containing citral have to be used cautiously. Using EOs in cp soap is limiting and more problematic than using FOs.

Soapmaker145 said:

It's the pH of the soap that is the enemy of most EOs and fragrance compounds. If the compounds are not stable in high pH, they are going to react and turn into something else that may not smell like anything to us. Sometimes the reaction is reversible. The scent may come back some as the pH drops back closer to neutral but you can't count on it. Anchoring with clay may help protect compounds that are somewhat resistant to alkali but it won't save sensitive compounds like citrus. At the end of the day, you need to test and test again. It might be helpful to try small testers using 1 to 2 g of EOs in an oz or 2 of batter to see how your EO mixes work. It'll save you a lot of money.

Lemongrass and Litsea are composed mostly of citral which survives in cp soap. Unfortunately, about 2% of people are allergic to it. It is also very sensitizing. EOs containing citral have to be used cautiously. Using EOs in cp soap is limiting and more problematic than using FOs.

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Some good points there. I test EOs in a drop of lye water, works pretty well. I've been wondering if the success some people report with clays and dried citrus peel have more to do with the time the EOs spend together before going into soap - if some bonding is happening between aroma chemicals? One website selling aroma chemicals claims their musk wraps around top notes helping them last longer. I don't know if that is true, but it did start me wondering. On the other hand perfume bloggers also have trouble with top notes sticking. Oh well. It's funny, I started using EOs because my family is into all natural stuff. At first I didn't like the scent of most EOs, now most FOs smell terribly artificial to me. I have to agree though, working with EOs is very limiting.

Soapmaker145 said:

It's the pH of the soap that is the enemy of most EOs and fragrance compounds. If the compounds are not stable in high pH, they are going to react and turn into something else that may not smell like anything to us. Sometimes the reaction is reversible. The scent may come back some as the pH drops back closer to neutral but you can't count on it. Anchoring with clay may help protect compounds that are somewhat resistant to alkali but it won't save sensitive compounds like citrus. At the end of the day, you need to test and test again. It might be helpful to try small testers using 1 to 2 g of EOs in an oz or 2 of batter to see how your EO mixes work. It'll save you a lot of money.

Lemongrass and Litsea are composed mostly of citral which survives in cp soap. Unfortunately, about 2% of people are allergic to it. It is also very sensitizing. EOs containing citral have to be used cautiously. Using EOs in cp soap is limiting and more problematic than using FOs.

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That explains a lot! I was wondering why some scents morph initially but then seem to revert after a cure time. At this point the fragrance oils are looking a mighty attractive (and cheaper!) option. Unfortunately I have some family members who are big into all things green, and they will probably go with the unscented soap if given the choice between fragrance or nothing, so I will keep experimenting. Thanks everyone for taking the time to share your wisdom!

Even though I am a fragrance lover, unscented soaps are really nice too. I always have customers pick them up and say, "Oooo this smells really nice, what is it?", and they're always surprised when I tell them it's unscented. They say, "But it smells so good!"

navigator9 said:

Even though I am a fragrance lover, unscented soaps are really nice too. I always have customers pick them up and say, "Oooo this smells really nice, what is it?", and they're always surprised when I tell them it's unscented. They say, "But it smells so good!"

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Haha, I had the same thing happen too! My mom insisted that she really liked the smell of a particular castile bar of soap, and she was not deterred when I told her that it was unscented =).

Millie said:

Some good points there. I test EOs in a drop of lye water, works pretty well. I've been wondering if the success some people report with clays and dried citrus peel have more to do with the time the EOs spend together before going into soap - if some bonding is happening between aroma chemicals? One website selling aroma chemicals claims their musk wraps around top notes helping them last longer. I don't know if that is true, but it did start me wondering. On the other hand perfume bloggers also have trouble with top notes sticking. Oh well. It's funny, I started using EOs because my family is into all natural stuff. At first I didn't like the scent of most EOs, now most FOs smell terribly artificial to me. I have to agree though, working with EOs is very limiting.

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What happens with clay and other solids we add to anchor fragrances is a process called adsorption. This is best described as an association or reversible attachment between the fragrance molecules and the clay. The process may protect some molecules that are partially resistant to lye by making them less readily available (or free) to react when the pH is still very high. You can easily see adsorption when you mix a richly colored EO or FO with clay for few hours. The clay will change color.

I used to only want to use EOs. Now I prefer FOs. The IFRA standards give you a safety margin that you don't have with EOs. If they made synthetic EOs and adjusted them for safety to follow the IFRA standards, I would use them without hesitation.

I have been thinking of one thing. I have not got my supplies yet, and have like zero experience. But the thing is that I want my essential oils to stick fairly well AND use less of them, since they are relatively expensive. I can not afford dumping in 100's of millilitres. So I have been thinking about letting the essential oils stick to something unsaponifiable. For example, when a maceration is made, flowers are put on top of animal fat and then the fat will soak up the fragrance. So, if you lets say take 20 ml of essential oils and mix them in with melted stearic acid, that should be approximately the same, maybe.

So I will try the following. Melt stearic acid or another wax and let it cool down until it begins to thicken. Then dump in the essential oils and mix very well. Put a lid on and set aside for a day or two. Then shred the fragrant stearic acid, or chop it up. Soap at a cold temperature and add the shreds in almost the last minute, but soon enough so that you have time for the stick blender to really chop up those bits of stearic acid with essential oils.

Maybe that will work, since the fragrance will then be not blended in with the oils and saponified, but floating around in the soap as micro capsules. And from those bits of fragrant wax, the fragrance can spread out to the soap itself. Like when making a maceration with flowers.

This is just a theory, I have not tested it. It might fail completely. But if it does work, there might to be able to use less essential oils and still get a god scent, hopefully. But again, the exothermal heat when the soap goes thru gel stage, will maybe evaporate those oils anyway.

Or it might be easier to just mix the essential oils together with stearic acid beads or jojoba beads and store it in a closed container for at least two weeks or so. In theory, the scent should migrate into the wax. And then just make soap as normal and stir those scented beads in at the last minute before molding.

Have anyone used lavender buds in soap? Not the essential oil but the flowers itself. Does that scent survive?

I'm just curious becouse i found a toilet paper roll stuffed with lavender buds and sewed togheter with fabric, to look like a doll or something decorative. We made that in school. So it is from the 80's - around 30 years old, and those lavender buds still have a scent! Not so strong that it used to be, but still. So if anything could survive, I will think lavender buds. But it may not be such a surviver in contact with lye?

Lavender buds are not attractive in soap - they end up looking like mouse poop. I doubt they would retain much, if any, scent.

Rune said:

I have been thinking of one thing. I have not got my supplies yet, and have like zero experience. But the thing is that I want my essential oils to stick fairly well AND use less of them, since they are relatively expensive. I can not afford dumping in 100's of millilitres. So I have been thinking about letting the essential oils stick to something unsaponifiable. For example, when a maceration is made, flowers are put on top of animal fat and then the fat will soak up the fragrance. So, if you lets say take 20 ml of essential oils and mix them in with melted stearic acid, that should be approximately the same, maybe.

So I will try the following. Melt stearic acid or another wax and let it cool down until it begins to thicken. Then dump in the essential oils and mix very well. Put a lid on and set aside for a day or two. Then shred the fragrant stearic acid, or chop it up. Soap at a cold temperature and add the shreds in almost the last minute, but soon enough so that you have time for the stick blender to really chop up those bits of stearic acid with essential oils.

Maybe that will work, since the fragrance will then be not blended in with the oils and saponified, but floating around in the soap as micro capsules. And from those bits of fragrant wax, the fragrance can spread out to the soap itself. Like when making a maceration with flowers.

This is just a theory, I have not tested it. It might fail completely. But if it does work, there might to be able to use less essential oils and still get a god scent, hopefully. But again, the exothermal heat when the soap goes thru gel stage, will maybe evaporate those oils anyway.

Or it might be easier to just mix the essential oils together with stearic acid beads or jojoba beads and store it in a closed container for at least two weeks or so. In theory, the scent should migrate into the wax. And then just make soap as normal and stir those scented beads in at the last minute before molding.

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That is a fine idea, except that saponification takes days, not the minutes that the EO is going to stay out of the soap batter. And then the lye takes what it wants, and heats up when it does. I have tried every way in the world to get the citrus EOs to stick (which are the only ones that are notorious faders, others stick fine), without any improvement on scent.

The scent won't migrate enough to scent your soap. It may be in your best interest to just make unscented soap since you don't want to spend the money to make a good smelling soap. Soapmaking is not a cheap venture. People generally buy soap for the design/color or more importantly the scent.

Rune said:

I have been thinking of one thing. I have not got my supplies yet, and have like zero experience. But the thing is that I want my essential oils to stick fairly well AND use less of them, since they are relatively expensive. I can not afford dumping in 100's of millilitres. So I have been thinking about letting the essential oils stick to something unsaponifiable. For example, when a maceration is made, flowers are put on top of animal fat and then the fat will soak up the fragrance. So, if you lets say take 20 ml of essential oils and mix them in with melted stearic acid, that should be approximately the same, maybe.

So I will try the following. Melt stearic acid or another wax and let it cool down until it begins to thicken. Then dump in the essential oils and mix very well. Put a lid on and set aside for a day or two. Then shred the fragrant stearic acid, or chop it up. Soap at a cold temperature and add the shreds in almost the last minute, but soon enough so that you have time for the stick blender to really chop up those bits of stearic acid with essential oils.

Maybe that will work, since the fragrance will then be not blended in with the oils and saponified, but floating around in the soap as micro capsules. And from those bits of fragrant wax, the fragrance can spread out to the soap itself. Like when making a maceration with flowers.

This is just a theory, I have not tested it. It might fail completely. But if it does work, there might to be able to use less essential oils and still get a god scent, hopefully. But again, the exothermal heat when the soap goes thru gel stage, will maybe evaporate those oils anyway.

Or it might be easier to just mix the essential oils together with stearic acid beads or jojoba beads and store it in a closed container for at least two weeks or so. In theory, the scent should migrate into the wax. And then just make soap as normal and stir those scented beads in at the last minute before molding.

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I would like to know how your experiment goes.
But keep in mind that stearic acid has a higher melting point than most hard oils ( like coconut, Palm ) so the exothermal effect of heating stearic acid before soaping might just make some of the EO evaporate/dissipate. Combined with the hot lye... And this is just a theory, too. You never know what the outcome will be unless you tried it in small batch. I have read that people use all kinds of clay like kaolin clay to absorb scent ( be it EO or FO ) to make a slurry ( make sure there's no clumps) then put it in at trace. They say it works as a fixative. I have tried it without noticing anything special. Maybe my senses are not that sensitive. Haha!

ETA: or search "French Milling" on forum, I recently read a thread that a member KChayck( spelling ) said he wanted to try a pasta machine/maker (ok it's 3:40 am I can't for the life of me think of what that machine called. You use it to knead pasta dough ) to extrude cold process soap dough and didn't bother. But that's a great idea if you wanted to save on EO. After knead the soap doughs, then add EO in. You can use less that way. Just a lot of elbow grease!!!

You may want to look into hot process or even into rebatching. Rebatching is more labor-intensive but it uses less scent. You shred the soap, melt it, add your scent and pour it. So the lye is gone (or mostly gone) by the time you add the scent.

Rebatching you cook the soap so a lot of the lye is gone by the time you add the scent.

Hmm, yes, the lye and the heating + the long time should eat a lot of scent. I have heard about the trick with clay as a fixative. But I don't really believe that either. I guess it depends on if the small clay particles itself are porous or not. But clay is nothing else than fine powdered rock. And rock can not hold anything unless it is porous, so that scents will soak into it. I think clay particles are not porous, since they are so small and fine. But I don't know.

Yes, soap making is expensive, and that is fine if you have the money. I don't at the moment. So that's why I have to try to find ways to cut costs. Otherwise I must quit thinking about making soap, and that is definately not an option. And the most expensive is essential oils, since you have to use more than for other applications. Fragrance oils are less expensive. But I don't want to use that. I have two goals for now: The local christmas market and an old style (19th century) market in autumn. And the most expensive is essential oils, since you have to use more than for other applications. Fragrance oils are less expensive. But I don't want to use that in general. But I will buy synthetic sandalwood. If I shall be able to reach christmas market, I have to start up in a while, since olive oil soaps needs such a long curing time. Then there will be failed batches, maybe lye heavy soaps, DOS and maybe this and maybe that that has to be accounted for. So I will need plenty of time.

I have heard that scents will hold up better in hot processed soap. Especially citrus scents. But I don't want to make hot process (I will mess it up completely, boiling over etc), except for a baby soap, where I wish to add an acid to get the ph down. And that is only possible in hot process, I think. I want to make a baby soap that will not hurt as much in the eyes as regular cold process soap. That for sure has to be tested with my own eyes first. For the baby soap I don't want to use neither essential oils or fragrance oils. Essential oils can be adulterated with God knows what. Fragrance oils contain chemicals. And I don't want unknown substances and chemicals for babies. But some sort of scent must be there. So I guess I will use some food item that is safe but still has a mild scent. Maybe tea or something.

This pasta machine thing, I don't think I get it. Or maybe. Are you supposed to knead the soap dough after it has gelled, but still is not ready to unmold? It will maybe be a good idea, but impossible to make any designs. Maybe bang different coloured dough together or something.

One cheap solution is to invest in a destillation apparatus. They can be found quite cheap. And make your own essential oils. Not very practical and cheap if you live in the middle of a big city like New York or something. But on the countryside, there is plenty of plants that can be distilled and are safe to use. Here, we have pine, spruce and birch in abundace. And in the summer, everything is tranformet into a sort of arctic jungle. In this area, we have the highest concentration in the world of ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris). I have never seen an essential oil of that plant. So that is something I want to make. This plant has a very green scent. Watery green, or damp green.

I was thinking that because of the high melting point of stearic acid, that it maybe would hold scents if the stearic acid is used unmelted in the soap. But then the stearic acid has to be scented before it is added to the soap. And since scents will be soaked up by all sorts of fat, the stearic acid will be scented if it is mixed with essential oils or fragrance oils beforehand, let to sit for quite a while, and then mixed in with the soap, raw, not melted first. The essential oil or fragrance oil itself will not soak in to other fats physically. But it is like a chopped clove of garlic in the same box as a piece of chocolate. The chocolate will get a strong flavour of garlic, but the garlic itself will not physically migrate into the chocolate, if you understand. Like a maceration, where they put fresh flowers on top of animal fat, and the fat sucks up the scent but not the flower itself. But in soap, the lye can maybe suck out the scent again, and heat as well can do the same. So it might not work at all in real life. Plus it will be pieces of unmelted stearic acid in the soap.

But there must be a way to bind scents before they go into the soap, so that they are more protected from lye and heat. I am sure there is, but what? I think it is not only important to try to find something because of the cost, but also in a sort of eco perspective. It takes a lot of plant matter to produce essential oils, and it would be a good thing if something could be done to reduce the consume of essential oils. Some of them have a limited resource as well, like sandalwood from India.

For example. To use 100 ml essential oil in a soap mixture, that will be aproximately the same as to make 10 bottles of perfume (50ml bottle, 20% perfume, 80% perfumers alcohol). So it is a lot that goes into soap.

One thing that I personally will try, since I love sandalwood, is to mix essential oil with mineral oil, and then let it soak into white sandalwood powder. And then mix the scented powder into soap. It might anchor scent, might not, but I hope it will bring a nice sandalwood smell to the essential oil blend.

Clays are porous. So maybe that's why people say it is a fixative. Essential oil itself is a chemical,too. Hundreds of chemical compounds like linalool,thymol...etc. Soap is made with man-made NaOH, so it is a chemical,too. Unless you are the African or some home-stead people burning organic leaves or tree peels to get lye, of course.
I'm not arguing with you, just that most people fell for the NATURAL label appeal and sometimes people get confused with the idea of natural.
You can get a crockpot, set on low to make hot process soap. It won't boil over unless you put in sugar, beer, wine to make soap volcano. Hot process like Dixie said is the way to use less EO or FO. You add it after soap is cooked and zap free. ( search zap test on forum )

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=490652
The French milling thread and pasta machine I'm talking about. Commercial soap making use a giant extruder machine kind of just like this idea. To compress soap batter/dough and making it firmer. Some brand even said triple French milled. They add fragrance after the extruder machine and then into the mold.

Sandalwood EO is very powerful thing. I never tried it in soap. But tried it in a EO diffuser. A drop sandalwood totally overwhelm the other scents I put in. Just saying. But it sure is way too expensive to put in soap. Sandalwood FO or powder will be more economic way.

Oh and maybe macerated EO with hard oils but not stearic acid. If you want to go that route. Stearic acid's melting point is higher. And stearic acid spot in soap is scratchy.

Soap is alkaline thus it won't be a tear free product. Just avoid it in eye area. And use citric acid to lower PH...nope, it will be more SUPERFAT. But won't lower too much, too much acid will make the soap a gooey mess ( break the soap and make it unusable).

And the distillation machine, you have to think about yield rate of the EO you want. Like flower's (Rose, jasmine) yield rate is quite low. Lavender and rosemary and woods will be so much higher than flowers.