Soap Losing Its Scent

[LetsBeSelfSufficient]

Hi everyone,

So I made a batch of vanilla soap, and it smelled delicious when I cut it into bars. In fact, I was almost tempted to eat it!

Unfortunately, it's got two weeks left to cure and the scent is fading. Does anyone know what could be causing this?

 

[patandchickens]

Did you use a fixative of any sort? Without it, scent does tend to fade.

Pat

 

[LetsBeSelfSufficient]

What's a fixative? I just used a castile soap recipe from about.com!

 

[valmom]

I haven't tried vanilla, but my EO scents haven't faded yet. Of course, so far they only last a couple weeks past curing .

What is a fixative, and does it really make scent last longer?

 

[BirdBrain]

Vanilla and the citrus EOs are the ones I have found that fade the quickest. I really like Five fold Orange and Black pepper mixed. You smell the orange but it has a nice zip to it which my DH really likes. The orange does not seem to fade in this combination. I also combine the orange and poppy seeds to make a nice scrubby soap with a light fragrance. It may be that when you begin to use the vanilla soap that the scent will be more noticeable--when it is wet, I mean.

 

[Morgaine]

how much vanilla did you use PPO (per pound of oil)?

Was this a essential oil or fragrance oil?

Was this scent tested in cold process soap by the maker? Care to say where you got i?

I use patchouli, cedar wood or black pepper to anchor my citrus essential oils too. I have read that you can also clay or orange powder though I do not think they have as good results.

 

[LetsBeSelfSufficient]

It was about 3 tsp per 2 lbs of oil. It was fragrance oil, and I got it from a guy at my local farmers market.

I'm going to try cedarwood in my next batch -- rosemary and sage shampoo soap.

 

[Morgaine]

I bet you anything that it was diluted with a carrier oil then. If you were using pure fragrance oil that should have been enough to get some scent at the very least.

Rosemary and sage should be really nice together.

I don't know if you are a member of back yard chicks, but I started a soap makers reference thread. It has a bunch of links to places where you can buy quality fragrances.

 

[valmom]

Morgaine- can you post the link to your BYC soap reference link? The soap link over there got so big and unwieldy I can't find anything on it without scrolling through 10's of pages.

 

[Morgaine]

Sure, I also have a link in my siggy on BYC.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=155832