# Ginger Essential Oil vs Fresh Ginger



## ca_soap (Feb 1, 2014)

I have been reading of how beneficial ginger is to the skin and I am contemplating incorporating ginger in to a soap recipe.  I am weighing between using a ginger essential oil and fresh ginger.  I would like to run the ginger through my juicer and use the fresh juice in the soap.  To me I gain something by seeing fresh raw product turned into usable product before my eyes vs buying something that is already produced where I really don't know the process used by the manufacturer except what they have told me.  It just seems more natural to use the raw product.

With this comes a couple questions.  First, do I lose or gain anything by using fresh ginger over a ginger EO?  Should I incorporate the juice in with the lye as part of the liquid or should I add it at trace as I would if I were using an Essential oil?  With EO being super concentrated, I know more fresh ginger will be needed than EO, does anyone have any idea how to determine the exchange rate for the two?  Does fresh contain added sugars over EO that may cause overheating (hence the question of when to add it to the mix)?

Of course I know the ultimate answer is I am just going to have to try it but I was hoping someone had some experience I could learn from to give my test a better chance of success.


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## yadonm (Feb 1, 2014)

I'm interested in the answer to this because I have a huge thing of ginger in the fridge.


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## lsg (Feb 1, 2014)

I can only guess, but here goes my opinion.  I would say that fresh ginger or ginger juice would be more beneficial in HP soap, added after the cook, as the saponification process of CP will destroy many of the benefits of fresh ginger.  Also fresh ginger might turn brown in CP soap.  It might grow nasties in HP soap too, I don't know.  I would probably use ginger EO instead, but go easy because it is a strong EO.  It blends well with citrus and some spice and floral oils.


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## paillo (Feb 1, 2014)

I've used fresh ginger peeled and blenderized into choice of milk and added it at trace with no problems. Used a ginger EO blend too. At a year it was still fine. I deliberately swirled with a color that complemented the tannish color the ginger added. As to whether its beneficial qualities remained, I don't really know, but it was one of my favorite soaps at the time. Had forgotten about it, need to make some more!


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## ca_soap (Feb 1, 2014)

Paillo, did the fresh ginger retain any of its fragrance?  The soap I am contemplating will be a carrot & ginger soap where I also plan to juice fresh carrots.  I am thinking the orange will help offset the dark coloration as well.


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## paillo (Feb 1, 2014)

It did not retain any of its fragrance, sorry to say  Very few fresh ingredients do. I love beer soap because it does retain some of the wonderfully naturally hoppy scent. But I've not had any scent 'stick' with veggies, fruits or condiments. Anyone else have any success with ingredients like these?


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## Lion Of Judah (Feb 1, 2014)

i make ginger soap as well and will tell you that everything lsg mentioned is what you have to consider. if you CP you will not get that crisp ginger smell from the juice and EO ginger tends to be more of an earthy scent than the crisp smell of ginger. i use the juice and i add a ginger root EO that i have with couple other EO's and the ginger scent does not come through. CP will eat up most of the benefits of the ginger. i too was trying to capture its healing properties and some of the benefits it brings to diabetics skin . HP may be the way to go if you want a majority of the beneficial properties to remain in your soap, adding it before you mold it .


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## ca_soap (Feb 1, 2014)

Paillo, I made a test batch of coconut milk and banana on Jan 24.  I used fresh banana in it and hot processed it.  The hot process was not planned by the way, after about 30 minutes in the mold the sugars obviously started causing problems as it was heating up way too much, way too fast.  In to the crockpot it went and got about 2 hours of cook on it.  It still has a strong banana fragrance to it which has really surprised me.  I tried a sample of it yesterday and was astounded by the lather from it but found that the bar is still quite soft.  I am anxiously awaiting to see how time is going to be to this batch.  My first concern is that if it still has such a great scent is there too much banana in it (it got two average size bananas to 4.5 lb of oils)  and is that going to cause rancidity at some point?  I suppose time will tell!


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## ca_soap (Feb 1, 2014)

Lion of Judah, thanks for the input, with all I am being told, I am thinking HP may be the way to go with this one.


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## Candybee (Feb 1, 2014)

I have a couple of soap recipes I use fresh ginger in; ginger lime and ginger orange. I use coconut milk in both soaps so I use that to blend the ginger in.

For the ginger lime I use coconut milk, fresh sliced ginger root (minus the brown skin), and fresh squeezed limes. I puree it all in my blender adding a bit of honey. BTW-- this makes an awesome refreshing drink! I take the pureed coconut milk with the lime and ginger and run it through a fine mesh sieve directly into my soap batter. I strain the milk mixture because I find the ginger scratchy in the soap. I use a ginger lime FO to compliment it.

I do the same with the ginger orange soap.

I would love to use ginger EO but the price is just waaaaay out of my range and I would have to sell the soap for a rediculous amount to recover the cost of using the EO.

Anyway, I have been doing this for a couple of years and have had no problems using fresh lime or orange juice or ginger root. I love how fresh ginger makes the scent sort of spicey, fresh, and peppery.


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## SoapMakingTommy (Feb 1, 2014)

MMmm, you just made me want to try and make a ginger soap.
I have some freeze dried ginger powder and i must say it smells deep ginger, i made some tincture with it and it smells even stronger. I dont know how they would smell in the soap, but it might not come thru.


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## Delynnr (Feb 2, 2014)

On a gingery note...... I have smelled 3 diff ginger EOs and own one.  They all smell terrible!!!!!  It smells like - rotten nasty ginger.  Does anyone know if this is due to the way it was distilled?  Is it possible to have a good gingerey smelling EO?  One that actually smells good?  I have heard that ginger EO either smells like this - (rotten ginger x locker room foot) or like real ginger - but I haven't found any good ginger.  Any suggestions?


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## Candybee (Feb 2, 2014)

Sounds like you did not get a good ginger EO. How much did you pay? Cheap knockoff versions I hear smell nasty and not anything like ginger while the real ginger EO smells like fresh ginger root. BTW-- the good stuff is pricey.... very, very, pricey.


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## houseofwool (Feb 2, 2014)

I recently ordered ginger from NDA and it is much more like fresh ginger than stinky sock.


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## ca_soap (Feb 3, 2014)

Well after reading the responses and reasoning I decided to go with a ginger EO over fresh ginger.  Since I didn't have ginger EO at the time I decided I would go ahead and do a carrot soap with honey and oatmeal.  After I juiced the carrots I came to the realization that I already had ginger and even though it may not add anything to the soap I figured I would go ahead and juice it out and add it to the mix which I did.  So I ended up doing a CP using fresh carrot juice and fresh juiced ginger.  I added in some raw unprocessed honey and oatmeal.  The color was a bit more orange at pour and through the process it went more yellow but it is a fabulous shade of yellow.  Anyway, here are the pics of the finished test product.  At 24 hours it smells almost identical to my unscented goats milk soap at about the same time.  It looks good and has a great consistency to it and though it may not have any ginger scent to it, I believe it will make a nice soap as it cures.


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## Sagebrush (Feb 3, 2014)

I made a soap about a year and a half ago with fresh ginger. There has been no rancidity and it actually made a nice hard bar with good lather (after it cured for a very long time). But I wish I had used ginger EO along with the fresh ginger. I'm hoping to try it again. I made a ginger and lime soap with ginger and lime EOs that turned out great...even though the ginger EO didn't smell as great as fresh ginger by itself, it blended well with the lime.


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## JusDin (Mar 11, 2014)

SageontheMountain said:


> I made a soap about a year and a half ago with fresh ginger. There has been no rancidity and it actually made a nice hard bar with good lather (after it cured for a very long time). But I wish I had used ginger EO along with the fresh ginger. I'm hoping to try it again. I made a ginger and lime soap with ginger and lime EOs that turned out great...even though the ginger EO didn't smell as great as fresh ginger by itself, it blended well with the lime.



Sage, if you don't mind my asking, what usage rate did you use for the ginger and lime EOs?  I just got a little of both and would like to try a batch of CP goat milk ginger lime, but I've been dragging my feet...as a total noob I don't seem to be very good at figuring this out effectively no matter how much reading I do on the subject!


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## Sagebrush (Mar 12, 2014)

JusDin said:


> Sage, if you don't mind my asking, what usage rate did you use for the ginger and lime EOs?  I just got a little of both and would like to try a batch of CP goat milk ginger lime, but I've been dragging my feet...as a total noob I don't seem to be very good at figuring this out effectively no matter how much reading I do on the subject!




No problem, JusDin. I used 1oz each of ginger EO and lime EO for 4.25lbs of oil. Hope your batch turns out well!


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## JusDin (Mar 12, 2014)

SageontheMountain said:


> No problem, JusDin. I used 1oz each of ginger EO and lime EO for 4.25lbs of oil. Hope your batch turns out well!



Perfect, just what I have...thanks so much!


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## judymoody (Mar 12, 2014)

To answer the ginger EO question, if you use EO from the dried root, the cheap stuff, it smells like dirty socks.  EO from the fresh root or CO2 processed smells like fresh grated ginger root.  It is very potent - I use it at 1-2% of my soaping oils weight.


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## cmzaha (Mar 12, 2014)

Here is a link for a fresh ginger soap http://www.lovinsoap.com/2012/10/ginger-soap-using-fresh-ginger-pulp-in-soap/


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