Why vanilla stabilizer is weird:

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TVivian

TVivian

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I see quite a few people ask about vanilla color stabilizer hoping it'll keep their vanilla soaps light. This is a picture of a soap I made about 4 months ago. It's vanilla FO with peppermint EO and Vanilla stabilizer used in equal amount with the vanilla FO. The soap stays light until I start using it. Once it's wet it dries brown around the edges.. Weird. ImageUploadedBySoap Making1422409693.686373.jpg

Here's another one. I did the same method, gelled the soap the same way..
ImageUploadedBySoap Making1422409958.023704.jpg

This one browned from the beginning except the edges that didn't gel. ... Weird.

So for anyone wondering why so many people will tell you Vanilla stabilizer is tricky, this is why.
 
From what I've red about the soaps changing back to brown after a few months, even with the stabilizer, I've decided to avoid those lovely, high vanilla FO's unless I want to make a brown or black soap. Has anyone had success only adding high vanilla FO's in a dark base and then either omitting it in other lighter color additions or adding a different non-vanilla fragrance to those lighter colors; or does the vanilla morph into cream, white, light tan, etc.?
 
JuneP said:
From what I've red about the soaps changing back to brown after a few months, even with the stabilizer, I've decided to avoid those lovely, high vanilla FO's unless I want to make a brown or black soap. Has anyone had success only adding high vanilla FO's in a dark base and then either omitting it in other lighter color additions or adding a different non-vanilla fragrance to those lighter colors; or does the vanilla morph into cream, white, light tan, etc.?
Click to expand...


Yes, I absolutely love vanilla and I've left lightly colored batter unscented and swirled it into vanilla scented batter. I've had mixed results with that. Some scents migrate into the lighter soap. It seems to help if the lighter portion contains TD to help the "migrating"

Here are two I've made recently in attempt to use vanilla and not have completely brown soap

ImageUploadedBySoap Making1422413592.074989.jpg
You can see the brown starting to travel into the Orange part. No TD was used.

ImageUploadedBySoap Making1422413638.865344.jpg
On this one the white line has quite a bit of TD and the line has stayed nice and sharp between the white and brown.
 
How are you mixing the stabilizer into your batch? I ask because some have reported good success when they mix the stabilizer into their oils instead of mixing it with the FO first.

I've only ever used VS once so far (BCN's) and the white parts of my soap (that were not swirled with red mica and charcoal) are still white after a year and a half. The red and black are still red and black, too.

I should mention that I didn't use it in a full-on vanilla scented soap, but it was with a man-scented FO that normally discolors on me to medium tan. I mixed the stabilizer with my oils instead of with the FO as was recommended to me by some soapers on another forum and all went very well.

Of course, my success could also be because the vanilla content in my FO isn't as high as with a full-on vanilla scented soap, but so far I'm impressed with what it did in my batch.

I need to use it with a full-on vanilla soap now to test its limits.


IrishLass :)
 
Irish Lass I mixed the scent with the stabilizer in a mason jar. I shook the heck out of it to make sure it was fully combined. The second try I even let the mixture sit for a few hours in the sealed jar then I added it like I would regular fragrance.

Both of these were high vanillin, 11% so I'm sure that makes a difference!

I meant to post the picture of the first soap awhile ago, but forgot until I was cleaning my bathroom today lol.
 
The stabilizer that I used once, I believe said it had to be put into the fragrance and then used right away. But I have been wrong before, I bought it at WSP
 

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