# How much essential oils to use?



## reahez (Apr 3, 2014)

Hello Soapers, 

Hope everyone is well. I have yet another question for you all. How much essential oil should I use in my soap?

I make a 2.519 lb or 1142.979 g batch and it never smells strong enough! When I put that into soapcalc it says I should use 0.38 g of fragrance, I can't find fragrance here so I use essential oils. I just eyeball it but it never smells strong enough :roll:. In fact all you can really smell is the soap which nice as it is, it's not what I'm looking for.

Any suggestions on how much I should use?

Thanks for your help guys I really appreciate it.

Happy soaping. Reah. :-D


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## lsg (Apr 3, 2014)

I use about .5 oz EO ppo, but you can go up to 1 oz ppo, depending on the EO.  You might also use an anchor like litsea cubeba for citrus, patchouli for other EOs or even some clay as an anchor.


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## AF_SOAP (Apr 3, 2014)

Well when I started out it was never strong enough.  Sure it depends on the essential oil that you are using, but for reference I am using bergamot.  When I use this, to make a "fragrance oil" I would use 12 drops per ounce of carrier oil.  12 is sort of on the high end anyway because that gives a %2 concentration ratio.  So since I usually use FCO, just omit the carrier oil and figure 30 drops or so for your 2.5 lbs of soap.

It really depends on how strong you want it.  Keep in mind though, essential oils are potent and not to be used on the skin directly most of the time.  Peppermint will give you all sorts of trouble and basically a ruined unusable batch if you go to high with the drops because it will literally burn while using it.


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## Obsidian (Apr 3, 2014)

I also use .5 oz per pound of oil and its a nice scent.


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## BabyPickles106 (Apr 3, 2014)

Do the oils used make a difference in how much EO one should use?


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## FlybyStardancer (Apr 3, 2014)

Definitely! Some are sensitizers (many citrus EOs, and spice EOs are even worse!). I think the max limit for some of the spices is something like 0.5%!


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## judymoody (Apr 3, 2014)

If you're using 1100 grams of oils, your essential oil amount should be around 33 grams for the batch.


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## reahez (Apr 4, 2014)

judymoody said:


> If you're using 1100 grams of oils, your essential oil amount should be around 33 grams for the batch.



I used a cinnamon EO the other day for a soap. I used only 5ml of the EO and it smells awful! It's far too strong I wont be able to use it! put me off cinnamon for life! :sick:


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## judymoody (Apr 4, 2014)

3% is a general rule.  Some EOs, which are known sensitizers, like cinnamon,  should be used more sparingly.


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