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@Mobjack Bay I came over here from Basenotes as well :) Wanted desperately to become an independent natural perfumer but rose, sandalwood, jasmine are so fundamental to scent creation and SO EXPENSIVE, so started doing soap because of its propensity for cheaper essential oils. To speak to the...

Hey! Try the Good Scents Company database (I think this might be what you were remembering @ResolvableOwl ?) - it's a federated database that covers thousands of aromas both natural and synthetic. It's kind of clunky, but there are a couple of places that have created their own search framework...

Thank you for posting this! Have always been wary of vanilla color stabilizer because was so unsure of the toxicity levels for humans/fish/environment.

maybe the lye or the water or both? have noticed when I use older batch lye solution my soaps end up smelling a little chemically-earthy-salty. It's a hard smell to describe. The first time it happened I thought my FO had burnt. I've also noticed the smell when I use a certain brands of...

Castor oil is a major fast-trace culprit for me, although shea is occasionally temperamental for me as well. If I'm trying to make something fancy, I leave the castor oil out, or at the very least lower it to 1-2%.

My bad, I just found the Kevin Dunn interview where he talks about essential oils and saponification, his statement is "the scent of CP soap made with lavender oil will smell less of linalyl acetate and more of linalool than the original EO". Which in my mind was somehow translated into lavender...

Just wanted to chime in and add that unlike carrier oils, EOs are volatile oils, i.e. they evaporate. Depending on the EO, they evaporate at different speeds - that's why perfumes have top-middle-base notes, and why getting aromas to "stick" in soap can be challenging. As many know, top notes...

Played with my new pull-through soap tool from Love Your Suds. :) I'm trying to using up old micas. Usually prefer plainer soaps, but this technique is so much fun. Every cut feels like a birthday present. 3rd attempt. Getting closer! & I love this color combo. Edit: formatting

Re: sugars/sugar alcohols for bubbly lather, I have experimented with sugar, honey, agave nectar, and sorbitol. For me, honey produces the finest texture, and sorbitol is an amazing bubble maker as Kenna's tests over at MS indicate. All of them can overheat, as evidenced by my many volcano'd and...

The salt bar is one of my favorites. My recipes tend towards 80% salt. I use it to wash my face in the morning - my skin is easily and often damaged and prone to breakouts - salt bars seems to help heal damage more quickly, make breakouts go away faster, and prevent breakouts - all of which kind...

@Zany_in_CO said: Late response, but OMG Joseph Henry's site! It was and continues to be my favorite general resource. He and his work are very close to my heart. Tried to track him down a about 2 years ago, found a couple of old blogs, some comments on some of his friends' blogs, even found...

I usually have luck if I use a bone folder or my fingernail to make the creases really sharp. Sometimes I get rounded corners if the freezer paper is too loose or too tight in the mold. Or you can plane the bars.

Hi everyone - So happy to have found this forum. Have been lurking for about a month. Through a year-long, ferocious self-study of classical perfumery, I was led, unexpectedly, perhaps inevitably...? But most happily, to SOAP. As of today, I've made, according to my little notebook...