Natural Scents

[Sirona71]

Other than Essential Oils, are there any other 'natural' scents you can use for your soaps? I'm one of them tree hugging, ghetto herb garden (only ghetto because it's on my porch lol), organic, au naturale type of gal.

I'm brand new to soap making, but I've made and sold other things (like bath oils, salts, etc) I have a bunch of essential oils, but it really pains me to think of dumping my drop-at-a-time, expensive essential oil into a pot of lye, LOL. Especially not knowing the outcome of both the fragrance or the properties of the EO.

Fragrance oils to me is out of the question.

Is there any other way to scent soap? Or is the EO and FO the only way to go?

Thanks
Kim

 

[surf girl]

Yer a girl after my own heart.

It's pretty hard, in my limited experience, to make soap smell with either potency or longevity with "natural scents." I can get soap to have a scent, but it doesn't last very long, and it's pretty mild to begin with.

Things I have tried that have had reasonable scent:
- infusing olive oil with herbs (mainly lavender and rosemary)
- infusing olive oil with cedar "leaves"
- soaping with cucumber as the liquid
- soaping with pureed red pepper as the liquid
- adding cocoa powder and baker's chocolate
- using pureed carrot and buttermilk as the liquid (smells somewhat nutty)
- warming/very lightly sauteeing ginger in olive oil, and using ginger "tea" as the liquid (very, very mild scent, hardly noticeable as ginger, but different from unscented soap)

Apparently, soaping with beer also gives a nutty smell, but when I soaped with beer I also used cinnamon leaf EO, so I can't really comment on the beer scent. I soaped with wine as the liquid and used lavender EO; the resultant soap smelled like, maybe, grape. Something not-quite-lavender, anyway, and not wine either.

I wouldn't be surprised if one could get a longer-lasting herbal scent by infusing, re-infusing, re-infusing, etc. My doubly-infused oil had a stronger scent than my single-infused oil.

Things I have tried that have not had any detectable scent:
- infusing olive oil with lemon balm and citrus fruit rind
- up to 1 tsp ppo of paprika/spirulina/stevia/dock root/rosehip/elderberry/curry powder/turmeric

HTH. If a person likes lightly scented soaps, then the above methods can give a light little something to the soap. If a person likes soap with a more prominent smell, then EOs would be the way to go, IMO.

 

[Guest]

I made a soap a few weeks ago where I used lavender infused olive oil. The smell was very subtle and has mostly faded out. I've got 2 bottles of olive oil infusing now, one with lavender buds and the other with chamomile. I really saturated the oil with them this time to see if the scent comes through better.

I've heard honey leaves a lasting scent in soap.

 

[LJA]

I used "apple pie spice" from the grocery store and that smelled great. Nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice....that kind of thing. A month later it still smells nice.

 

[surf girl]

LJ - how much spice did you use ppo?

 

[LJA]

I did about 1 tsp. PPO....
Hope that helps.

 

[AK_Homesteaders]

I used "apple pie spice" from the grocery store and that smelled great. Nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice....that kind of thing. A month later it still smells nice.

Did you infuse it with the oils, or did you add it directly. With such a small amount, I'm guessing you just added it at trace? I just made an apple pie today. Love that smell!

Thanks!

 

[LJA]

I just added it to a little bit the castor oil that I was adding at trace, mixed it so it blended in, and then just poured it into the soap batch.

Easy peasy.

 

[TessC]

The nicest natural scent I've ended up with was from a batch of buttermilk-carrot-honey bastile. No EOs, no FOs, and it has a subtle but lovely sweet and nutty scent to it.

 

[honor435]

Kim,
Im also a Kim! Use cheaper eos, like lemongrass, peppermint, pachouli, lavender, just dont use the higher quality oils like you do for theraputic reasons. I just got lemongrass for under 4$, thats not bad.

 

[Sirona71]

Thanks for all your replies/ideas!!

 

[MsBien]

I make an oatmeal & honey soap that smells good enough to eat!

 

[Lindy]

Me too on the OMH - in fact at Christmas my 1 year old great niece did eat some of the soap I sent to them - when they put it up she kept finding it and eating more - put a whole new spin to washing your mouth out with soap!

 

[SimplyE]

Me too on the OMH - in fact at Christmas my 1 year old great niece did eat some of the soap I sent to them - when they put it up she kept finding it and eating more - put a whole new spin to washing your mouth out with soap!

Wish I had that stuff, instead of Dial...BLAH! I can still taste it!

 

[orangeblossom]

I know this is an old thread, but as I was researching spirulina on here, it came up for me.

I do this mostly.

I find that buying bulk herbs is the key to make it affordable. If you can find a group of folks who want to go in and buy herbs from frontier herbs or mountain rose herbs, or seek out your local indian grocery store (for spices) or grow your own, or friend local gardeners who will let you harvest some of there herbs in exchange for soap later. I do all of the above.

Yes, it makes a more mildly scented soap. Very mild, and a lot of people want a more mild scented soap. It will never "compete" with EOs or FOs. It's a different ball game.

I have had a lot of success with infusing and double infusing the following:
chamomile flowers
lavender flowers
rosemary
cloves
nutmeg
allspice
cardamom
(the spices blended together are my favorite!)
dried peppermint does not do much,--i want to try fresh mint (both peppermint and spearmint)
dried spearmint was okay--perhaps a double infusion would be better

I just did a LOT of fresh basil, that I let dry for a day or two, so it was wilted, but not dry and crackly--and added it to coconut oil in my crock pot and turned it on warm off and on for a week. My soap is now 10 days old and smells wonderfully-basil-y. I will report back after 4 weeks or more.
i have had little success with orange peels, but I want to try this again doing a double infusion.

also, i no longer use palm oil, so i use more olive oil per batch, and therefore more scent per batch. And I started infusing coconut oil for 100% coconut oil soaps and for the rest of the oil make up for the olive-oil/coconut-oil bars. I do this in the crock pot or in my oven, which has a pilot light and stay around 90/100 degrees.

and i agree with honey and oameal honey and milk. both smell yummy.

i'd love to hear of you are experimenting with this!

ETA:
what didn't leave a scent:
dried hibiscus
cocoa powder infused olive oil
vanilla beans (unless you use dozens, which isn't cost effective)
lightly dried marigolds (not calendula, but that too doesn't leave a scent)

 

[jadiebugs1]

Thanks for bumpin this....very interesting (read, whole lots more ideas to try!)