Question about clove bud eo

[kerianne]

Hey everyone,

So today I made a 4lb batch of coffee soap with clove e.o, which i added to the oils before heating (3.5 oz). It reached trace super fast but I still managed to mix it for about 5 minutes and I managed to get it into the mold.

After consulting with google, I now realize that Clove Bud eo can be a skin irritant and accelerates trace.

It's been in the mold for about 3 hours and it has already gelled completely. Will the safe be unsafe to use once it has hardened, should I try to rebatch it or is it a lost case?

 

[Genny]

3.5 oz is a lot of eo for clove in my opinion. Since clove is a strong oil, I usually start out at 1/4 oz per lb of soap oils.

Technically, all eo's can be skin irritants. It just matters who's using them. I've seen some people use clove neat on their skin and not have it irritate their skin. *I don't recommend using any eo's neat on your skin.*

Once the soap's all set and cured for a week or two. Test a small piece on the inside of your arm to check for irritation.

If you add eo's to the oils and then heat up the oils, it's very likely that you'll burn off the scent.

 

[kerianne]

I add the eos during the heating process, I read that it helps to anchor the scents better, it's worked for me so far..

Thanks for your help. Hopefully once cured it will be fine, I would hate to lose a 4lb batch.

 

[green soap]

Clove EO, cinnamon leaf EO, and maybe cassia all accelerate trace. Some of my customers prefer these scents so i keep making them. Yes, the soaps end up with holes and imperfections, par for the course. If you want these EOs, you have to fight with acceleration. Swirling is hard, sometimes impossible.

Essential oils can always irritate somebody, I have not noticed anything with the clove or any of the others. I do use them in much smaller amounts than you do though. When I do orange clove i might use .7 oz of orange, but only 0.2 oz clove PPO.

 

[kerianne]

Thanks for the info, green soap/ Lesson learned for next time!

 

[Fragola]

I don't often use those EOs, but read somewhere it helps to bring the soap to trace and add the EO dissolved in the superfat oil, mixed in by hand.

Part of the reason these EOs accelerate trace is that they react with the lye. Which means some of the EO goes away and a different substance appears (which probably behaves differently in terms of irritancy).

I add the eos during the heating process, I read that it helps to anchor the scents better, it's worked for me so far..

The heating process - you mean heating the oils before adding the lye ?

 

[kerianne]

Fragola- Yes, I added them to the oils before heating them and mixing with the lye solution. I can still smell the clove pretty strongly in the cut soap, so I'm not sure if it went away after reacting with the lye like you said??

 

[Fragola]

Like I said above, only a part of the oil reacts with the lye, not all of it.

 

[kerianne]

Oh, ok.

 

[sudbubblez]

Clove EO is a skin irritant and I've got the red ass to proove it. I thought I was too hardcore for a carrier oil (because i had rubbed a small amount directly on my forearms after shaving before and only gotten a warming sensation), disregared the warning on the label, and rubbed clove EO on my butt and thighs. Within a minute, I was screaming and running to the shower, taking flying leaps over everything in my path. I do not have sensitive skin and this stuff hurt so bad that I could not help from screaming, and the only way to get it off was to scrub myself raw with a detergent. It took 5-10 minutes to get it out of my skin. My neighbors probably thought someone was getting mutilated and the dogs were checking on me and looking bewildered wondering Kitten Love I was screaming about. It needs to be used in lower concentrations than other essential oils. I have a 4lb batch with not even a half ounce of clove EO total and its a few months old now and still very fragrant. A little bit of that stuff goes a long way.

Essential oils are not saponifiable for the most part; it is determined by the types of fatty acids they are composed of.

 

[Genny]

Yikes, sudbubblez! Your story is definitely why I always recommend people never use eo's neat.

 

[kerianne]

Argh. Thanks for the info, sudbubblez, that sounds awful! I was just going to let it finish curing and then test it to see if it irritates my skin.

But if I rebatch it, will that make it less likely to be an irritant? Because I know that exposing eos to a high temp causes them to break down..

 

[sudbubblez]

I had that experience because I put the EO undiluted directly on my skin. Its not guaranteed to be an irritant in soap, just when too much is used. I made a 4lb batch with about 1/4-1/2 oz of the clove and it does not irritate me and I think the strength of the clove smell is just right. Plus, clove does not fade.

I am unsure if you could cook off the excess, but find the flash point of this particular EO and then cook it higher than that temp to see if it fades. I would recommend re-cooking a small portion of the soap, and compare it to the original to see if there is a difference. I wouldn't throw this soap out, its not a loss if you do find that its irritating. What you could do, is divide it into portions and rebatch it with new soap, over time. Like, if you want your soap to have 1/2 oz of the clove EO and are making another 4lb oil weight batch, divide this batch into 7 equal pieces, and take one piece and melt it with the oils of the new batch. the oil weight of the new batch would be about 3.5, and after adding the portion of the already made clove soap, its just over 4lbs. You can rebatch by melting already made soap into the oils of a new one, then adding the lye water as usual.

 

[kerianne]

Thanks so much sudbubblez! I'm out of the country for three more weeks anyway, so I left them to cure while I'm away. When I get back I'll test them and then probably rebatch some using the method you described. I've never rebatched before so I'm kind of looking forward to it

Would it be possible to use some of the cured soap as embeds (some of them are cut into small squares already), or would it be too hard to slice when embedded in the new soap?

 

[sudbubblez]

I'm not sure about embeds. Those pieces would be high in the eo but when the bar is lathered, its all mixed together with the other soap and diluted so it might be okay. I don't think it would be too hard to cut. If you're using wires you may want to take it slow. I don't have problems cutting cured soap; its all like hard cheese unless it was a super hard recipe or very high in steric/palmitic/myristic. On my water discount soaps that are harder initially and also a recipe high in steric and pamitic (which would be like cutting a cured hard recipe), I notice that if I use a thicker blade (one thats more of a wedge shape than a plane) sometimes the soap tries to crack on the edges or little pieces on the edges break off during cutting due to the slight bending of the bars during cut caused by the wedge.

I found that brambleberry has a calculator for essential oils and fragrances. THey didn't have an option for clove bud but its similar enough to use as a guideline. It said for a subtle scent use .48oz in 4lbs of soap and for a strong scent use 1.92oz. So this 3.5oz in your 4lb is about twice the recommended dose... but then in the notes about the EO it uses the words "bud" and "leaf" interchangeably. They list the flashpoint of their clove leaf at 199F. It warns not to use it if you are on blood thinners and never to use it in rates higher than 1% in leave on products.

http://www.brambleberry.com/Pages/Fragr ... lator.aspx

 

[kerianne]

I use a benchscraper to cut my soaps, not a wire. I guess I will just have to test it and see, I didn't use a water discount though so I'm hoping they won't be too hard. So essentially I will have to make at minimum another 4lb batch and combine it with the 4lbs I already made to reduce the eo to a safe level. That should work out to be around 1.75oz/4lb, right?

 

[sudbubblez]

You wouldn't have to make any particular sized batch. Just adjust the math accordingly. For example, your current batch has 3.5 oz of the EO, you would cut a portion off thats equal to however much EO you want in the new batch.

It may be good soap wihout having to rebatch. I don't think it's an obscene overage of the EO but I would not gift it to anyone who has sensitive skin or doesn't meet the medical safety warnings for clove EO

Since clove eo has discinfectant and antimicrobial properties, and coffee has deodorizing poperties, you may be able to find some uses for it around the house if you do find its too irritating to wash with it, and don't want to rebatch the whole thing. Like, dishes or kitchen cleaning... or something.

 

[kerianne]

Oh, yeah. I meant if I wanted to rebatch all of it at once then that calculation would be correct. But I understand what you're saying.

I'll probably test the soap as is, then rebatch some as necessary and keep some for kitchen use.

Thanks so much for your help!

 

[Oliveandash]

I had that experience because I put the EO undiluted directly on my skin. Its not guaranteed to be an irritant in soap, just when too much is used. I made a 4lb batch with about 1/4-1/2 oz of the clove and it does not irritate me and I think the strength of the clove smell is just right. Plus, clove does not fade.

I am unsure if you could cook off the excess, but find the flash point of this particular EO and then cook it higher than that temp to see if it fades. I would recommend re-cooking a small portion of the soap, and compare it to the original to see if there is a difference. I wouldn't throw this soap out, its not a loss if you do find that its irritating. What you could do, is divide it into portions and rebatch it with new soap, over time. Like, if you want your soap to have 1/2 oz of the clove EO and are making another 4lb oil weight batch, divide this batch into 7 equal pieces, and take one piece and melt it with the oils of the new batch. the oil weight of the new batch would be about 3.5, and after adding the portion of the already made clove soap, its just over 4lbs. You can rebatch by melting already made soap into the oils of a new one, then adding the lye water as usual.

I’d like to try something like this, as I am try to rebatch some soap with this method, but have a few questions. Obviously you would have to deduct the percentage of oils added from the old soap, but would you also deduct a percentage of the lye and water?The old soap isn’t that strongly scented but would you deduct some from that too? Thanks so much!

 

[Relle]

I’d like to try something like this, as I am try to rebatch some soap with this method, but have a few questions. Obviously you would have to deduct the percentage of oils added from the old soap, but would you also deduct a percentage of the lye and water?The old soap isn’t that strongly scented but would you deduct some from that too? Thanks so much!

This member hasn't been here for 9 yrs, the thread is from 2012, so you probably won't get an answer from them. Other members might chime in to help you out.