Fragrance Oil Usage Rate?

[Tara08]

Hello lovely soapmakers!
I am really confused by some of the info I am getting from Northwood Distributing about the usage of their fragrance oils. Example below, for Bergamot & Wilf Fern in says for soap the skin safe % is 42. The usage rate for soap obviously can't be that?? Does anyone else have experience/info with this company and the details of their FO's? I have found some with really high %'s on WSP too. Thanks!!

 

[AliOop]

Hi Tara,

A high safe usage rate doesn't mean you will actually use that much. I generally don't use more than 6-8% FO no matter how safe it is. Otherwise, the soap doesn't turn out well, e.g., the FO weeps out of it, or it never firms up, etc.

The nice thing about a high safe usage rate is that it gives you a wide range to adjust the % of FO actually used, based on how strong the FO is in your soap. For instance, you may find that 3% is strong enough (regardless of the max usage rate). But you might also find that 3% of this FO is too weak in soap. That's ok, because you have room to bump it up to 6% and see if that's better.

If the max usage rate is low, like 3%, you don't have this flexibility.