# Gardenia essential oil



## rdc1978 (Mar 8, 2020)

When I first started soapmaking, the book I used only had recipes with essential oils, but I figured you could just swap out essential oils, and with all the confidence in the world I purchased some fairly pricey gardenia essential oil in the hopes of making a gardenia cp soap with it.  

After a little research it seems like a) no one is making gardenia soap with gardenia essential oil - it's all f/o b) the floral essential oils may fade in CP soap and c) gardenia f/o (which I assume has some gardenia e/o) appears to accelerate super quickly to the point of seizing.  

So.....what do you all think my best options are for this gardenia e/o?  Thanks everyone!


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## Vgurer (Mar 8, 2020)

My suggestion is; since the tahitian gardenia (tiare) enfleured in coconut oil has an apellation controllé, MONOI OIL, I think that you can easily use the precious EO and combine this with the coconut oil while it is still liquid but cold, creating an interpretation of monoi oil. prepare your preferred unscented batch with as little SF as possible, and at the last moment of trace, at the lowest possible temperature, add the monoi oil as scent & SF. may be worth a try?


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## Susie (Mar 8, 2020)

Even the gardenia FO's accelerate madly.  Be prepared to mix and pour immediately.  I spent a whole morning replacing ice in the sink the mold was floating in to prevent volcano.  And I had everything absolutely at room temperature with no other heat sources such as sugars.  It gelled within a couple of minutes while floating in the sink of ice water.  I was afraid to put it in the freezer.  I thought it was a bad FO, but then I tried two others of different sources/manufacturers, and got the pleasure of doing it all again.  I gave up.


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## Vgurer (Mar 8, 2020)

I am not a chemist, But i did a google search and found that most of the gardenia EO consists of e-ocimene, linalool and methyl benzoate. 
linalool + naoh has been defined as a strong antifungal drug. 
Meanwhile, methyl benzoate + naoh will give you sodium benzoate (hardening effect on soap) and methanol (a kind of alcohol, lots of carbons = heat in soap). 
I also learned that ocimene formula is C10H16, 10 carbon atoms with 16 hydrogen. There are lots of carbons and hydrogens, when NaOH and water H2O, will bring in the oxygen, thus, exothermic reactions will surely occur.
But you know all of this from the empirical data.


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