Olive Oil Soap Smell

[Fran2]

Hi All,

I have a stupid question, sorry. I made 100% Olive Oil Soap which smell like old olive oil after a 3 month cure. Is this how most of your 100% olive oil smells?

Thanks in advance!

 

[lsg]

How old was the oil you used? Maybe you could try rebatching a small amount and add fragrance to see if it would cover the smell. I use olive pomace with other oils and have never noticed an off smell.

 

[AlchemyandAshes]

I have a stupid question, sorry.

"Stupid" is not asking a question you need the answer to...no need to apologize :wink:

Does your soap look "off" as well as smell "off"? Any DOS? Maybe your Olive Oil was going rancid when you soaped it? Rebatching won't "fix" rancidity, but if its just a funky smell, the rebatching and adding fragrance may help.

 

[Fran2]

My olive oil was fresh. The color is ver light almost white. No dos. I did make another batch a four weeks ago (new oil) and I just used the soap and it also smells like olive oil. Could I mail a bar for an opinion. Also a bit slimy in shower is that how it usually is? I did not water discount. Used full water could that have something to do with it. I was told later on that I should discount my water when making olive oil soap.

Thanks again.

 

[Seifenblasen]

Whether you use full water or with a discount should not affect the smell of your soap that much. Smell is such a personal thing; you may feel like bathing in olive oil but it may smell just fine to another person.

As far as slime, it is unfortunately the trade mark of castile soap! Some people have creamier versions made with milk (replacing all or part of the water with milk in the lye solution), but for true castile with water, the only way to reduce sliminess is a super long cure - like 12 to 18 months.

Hazel wrote something about butyric acid in milk soap and that some people can smell it and some cannot. It is really interesting. Starts on page 16:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4&start=225

 

[AlchemyandAshes]

I like to do a water discount with my soaps that have a high Olive Oil content (only 40-50%...I'm not currently making any Castille) because it reaches trace faster, can be unmolded sooner, and cured for 6 weeks as opposed to months. Castille soap does have a slimy lather, but it does improve some (not a whole lot) with a longer cure...not big fluffy lather, but less slimy. Maybe you're just smelling the natural scent of Olive Oil soap and you're not used to it?

 

[krunt]

hi fran,

yes, i too have found that my olive oil soap has a unique smell... i actually find it quite unpleasant. i make unscented soap, so there's no essential or fragrance oil to cover it up. i dislike the smell so much i have actually decided to stop using olive oil altogether. and extra virgin olive oil smells worse than refined olive oil.

when i first started making soap, i used oo in all of my batches, so i just thought that's how handmade soap smelled. but after moving onto other oils, i realised it's the olive oil giving off that funky smell.

 

[Fran2]

Thank you all for your great input. Thank you for the link to Hazel's article. I think you are all right, I just might not be used to the smell of pure olive oil soap.

I think when I make it again, I will scent it with Lavender so I won't smell the Olive Oil.

You are all so great!

 

[green soap]

I just read recently (I will post a link if I find it again) that commercial manufacturers use some additives to remove the natural soap smells, so they do not smell like anything and market them as unscented. Apparently a lot of unscented commercial products have these additives. This is probably why our unscented handcrafted soaps smell different to us, we are smelling the ingredients natural smell.

I only use pomace, and my unscented soaps don't have much of a scent indeed. However, when I make unscented goat milk soaps, the soaps smell like powdered dry milk to me.