Do EOs behave differently when combined with other EOs

[Fernando Sage]

Who doesn’t love a good soap on a stick?

Been getting those often lately and have no idea why.
I know this usually happens with some essential oils. There’s an amazing post with a list of essential oils that speed up tracing.

Learned my lesson the hard way and now I avoid those for soaps with some design.

But lately this has been happening with multiple essential oils I have used before without a problem whatsoever.

I use always the exact same recipe for all my soaps
Water lye ratio: 1.7000:1
I get my butters and oils from 2 sources but my Lye and Essential oils I still get most from amazon. I don’t like this because we end up using EOs from different brands all the time But for now it is what it is.
I soap at around 80F to 90F,
The soaps that traced fast had either some clay, charcoal or both like the one on the picture below. (Never had any issues with them, we usually are able to control tracing well enough to do that design that we really like.)
Essential oils that we used for the soaps on sticks were: sage, cedar wood, eucalyptus, raspberry, Vetiver, tea tree, Sandal wood (usually speeds up tracing for me), ylang ylang, peppermint.

Except for Sandalwood, the others are usually very easy to work with.

Does anyone have any idea what could be happening?
Is it possible that an EO behaves differently in different blends?

 

[AliensrReal]

The essential oils may not behave well with the clay or charcoal if that is the only thing you’re doing differently.

 

[Ford]

Hi, people are always complaining about Amazon eo's. Can you or have you thought about using reputable sources?

 

[KiwiMoose]

Did you use ALL the oils in that list above in one batch? If you have never used that combination before, and there is a combination of high eugenol content across all or many of them, that would do it.
N.B - I find Ylang Ylang accelerates dreadfully when I use it.

 

[lenarenee]

I'm grasping at straws here, but are you hydrating the charcoal and clay in water first?

I don't know which eo's you're buying on Amazon, but so many of them are adulterated - hence the appealing price tags! The carrier oils used could be so old that they're filled with free fatty acids - which accelerates trace. I'd also be very wary of the company that sold you "raspberry essential oil" because
there is no such thing.

Eugenol is a constituent in many essential oils (clove is exceptionally high in it), and people use tiny amounts of it for soap recipes that are too fluid and need help saponifying faster.

Until this issue is resolved, try stirring by hand only....?

 

[Zing]

You got good lookin soap there!
I'll just good-naturedly pile on and recommend you purchase EO from a soap and candle company. I watch for sales. I also like to buy sample sizes before committing to larger quantities. I buy from Bramble Berry and have had zero issues with essential oils. Good luck to you.
Also, where are more photos?!

 

[Becky1024]

I use essential oils all the time and have never had a problem with them behaving differently in blends. I learned early on not to buy essential oils from Amazon. They are mostly adulterated, and even though the price looks good you may end up using more in your soap to get a noticeable scent.