sanjosedave
Member
I'm new to soap making and have a couple of questions:
1) I've used the Tea Tree and Cedar EOs both from Brambleberry.com. I used 1.5 oz of each of those in a 3 lb batch. I added them near the end of a HP recipe (it was a 5% SF recipe). The soap ended up smelling pretty nice. The Tea Tree fragrance seemed to be a bit more prominent than the Cedar. I've since ordered and received some "Big Sur" FO from Soapalooza. I haven't used this in a recipe yet though. The Cedar EO and "Big Sur" FO don't smell very strong to me when I take a whiff straight from the bottles they came in. The Tea Tree EO smells stronger but not by much. I have 2 tiny bottles (maybe 1/8th oz?) of what I believe are EOs I purchased from Whole Foods many years ago with the intention of adding them to some other oil to make a massage oil. One is White Ginger and the other is Plumeria. When I take the caps off of these tiny bottles the fragrance is REALLY POWERFUL. You can smell it across the room just from having the cap off. The intensities of the Cedar, Tea Tree and Big Sur oils I mentioned above absolutely PALE in comparison. What's going on here? Are Brambleberry and Soapalooza diluting their EOs/FOs with some other carrier oil? Is it possible to order more potent EOs/FOs? Is this advisable or economical?
2) Why doesn't soapcalc include fragrance oils in it's calculations for how much Lye to add to the recipe? I've tried and it doesn't matter what number I put in that box for fragrance in oz per pound - soapcalc gives me the same amount of Lye for the recipe. In my recipe I added a full 3 oz of EOs to the recipe and it seems like this amount of oil should be accounted for in the calculations, but it isn't. What gives? I've tried looking for these EOs/FOs in the list of "Oils, Fats and Waxes" but they aren't listed. Any ideas? The soapcalc directions don't provide any explanation for this either.
Thanks,
Dave
1) I've used the Tea Tree and Cedar EOs both from Brambleberry.com. I used 1.5 oz of each of those in a 3 lb batch. I added them near the end of a HP recipe (it was a 5% SF recipe). The soap ended up smelling pretty nice. The Tea Tree fragrance seemed to be a bit more prominent than the Cedar. I've since ordered and received some "Big Sur" FO from Soapalooza. I haven't used this in a recipe yet though. The Cedar EO and "Big Sur" FO don't smell very strong to me when I take a whiff straight from the bottles they came in. The Tea Tree EO smells stronger but not by much. I have 2 tiny bottles (maybe 1/8th oz?) of what I believe are EOs I purchased from Whole Foods many years ago with the intention of adding them to some other oil to make a massage oil. One is White Ginger and the other is Plumeria. When I take the caps off of these tiny bottles the fragrance is REALLY POWERFUL. You can smell it across the room just from having the cap off. The intensities of the Cedar, Tea Tree and Big Sur oils I mentioned above absolutely PALE in comparison. What's going on here? Are Brambleberry and Soapalooza diluting their EOs/FOs with some other carrier oil? Is it possible to order more potent EOs/FOs? Is this advisable or economical?
2) Why doesn't soapcalc include fragrance oils in it's calculations for how much Lye to add to the recipe? I've tried and it doesn't matter what number I put in that box for fragrance in oz per pound - soapcalc gives me the same amount of Lye for the recipe. In my recipe I added a full 3 oz of EOs to the recipe and it seems like this amount of oil should be accounted for in the calculations, but it isn't. What gives? I've tried looking for these EOs/FOs in the list of "Oils, Fats and Waxes" but they aren't listed. Any ideas? The soapcalc directions don't provide any explanation for this either.
Thanks,
Dave
