Is there an EO calculator anywhere?

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Hippie13

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I've developed some recipes on lye calculators but all it gives me is the total weight of the fragrances. Is there a calculator out there that I can put my recipe in and what oils I want to use and it will tell me how much of each?

I've tried Brambleberry and TheSage but they only let me select one oil for my batch weight. Any tips or suggestions?

I've got the oil blends I want to use, I just need amounts depending on my recipe.
 
Not too my knowledge. If I am using a blend, I calculate my usage rate based on the one with the lowest usage rate. So, if my blend contains lavender, mint and orange, I will calculate it at medium strength with orange as the only EO.
 
Welcome Hippie13! :wave:

No, there's no calculator like that out there (at least not that I'm aware of). I'm figuring that it would be a nightmare to create one since every EO comes with its own safe dermal usage rate depending on how much of whatever skin-irritating constituent is present in it depending on where it was sourced, etc...

Hippie13 said:
How do I do that?

The best way is to look up the safe dermal usage rates for whatever EOs you are using in your blend. A very good source for such info is Robert Tisserand & Rodney Young's book entitled. 'Essential Oil Safety". If you ask me, it's a must have for anyone serious about using EOs. Some EOs such as cloves, cinnamon, mint, etc... are known skin irritants and come with low recommended usage rates for dermal use. For example, the safe dermal usage rate for clove EO is a mere .5%, so if your blend includes cloves, you'll need to make sure to not go over that amount when adding it to your soap.


IrishLass :)
 
Exactly. You do it with maths.

If you want to use x% total scent, look up the EOs for any maximum usage rates and see if any would mean a lower ratio of that x% than you would like. If so, work with that as an absolute maximum when working out your final mixture.

For example, you want to use 1% scent and your two chosen EOs can be used at 10% for this application. You can happily use anywhere between 0% and 1% of one and the remainder as the other and be safe and happy.

If one can only be used at 0.5% in the application, then you can only do a 50/50 split of the two. If one can only be used at 0.1%, the other would have to be used at (and safe at!) 0.9%
 
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Okay, I'm better with an example so I'll give it to you. The recipe I come up with calls for a fragrance oil weight of 6 grams. If I want to use the oils: lavender, chamomile, marjoram, bergamot, and ylang ylang; how do I figure out how much to use of each one?
 
First, check the safe usage rates of each for your particular application. Soap and lotions are different applications, so what is okay for one won't always be okay for the other.

What is that 6 grams as a % of the recipe?

If based on the safe usage rates for what you intend to use them, all could be used at an equal split - what do you want it to smell like? More of one than other? Less of one? Are you looking at some being base notes and so on?

This is why a calculator as such would be next to useless - it's not just "info = answer" as the amount of info is so variable.
 
This isn't an EO calculator, per se, but it does allow you to look-up EO blends for soaps and provide usage limits for particular oils. You can also create your own blends and enter the amount of oils used in your soap, percentage of EOs in the blend, and it will provide a low, medium, and high usage amount. It will warn you if a particular oil shouldn't be used in excess of a certain amount.

http://www.eocalc.com/

I know that this isn't the end-all, be-all. But, I find it extremely difficult to determine the correct EO usage rates according to IFRA guidelines, unless the supplier provides the info.

Here's some info that explains the process of determining the correct usage rate:

http://www.lovinsoap.com/2016/07/understanding-ifra-guidelines-essential-oil-use-soap/

I'll be following this post, as this has always been a topic that mystifies me.
 
In my example of lavender, mint and orange:
I choose my product: Lotion
I choose my amount: 20 oz

If I am using only 1 essential oil in the "moderate" amount
lavender - .55 tsp
peppermint - .53
orange - .57 tsp

So these are all pretty close. I measure my fragrances by volume, not by weight, because I can pour into a (stainless) measuring spoon or using a pipette to measure, thus not dribbling an expensive ingredient all over the place. For this batch of lotion I would use .5 tsp of fragrance.
 

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