Anyone use hydrosols?

[Issa]

Hello! Reading this in 2020! I hope everyone is safe and healthy. How was your hydrosol experiment with soaps? I would also like to try doing this as most of my soaps doesn't really smell fantastic. My soap's scent (from essential oils) usually fade after cure. I haven't tried using litsea cubeba as some say it helps with anchoring scent. So I would like to try out using hydrosol hoping for a better "scent throw" from my soaps. I have y'all have a great day!

 

[MomInWA]

I'm resurrecting this thread! I make a body butter using rose-geranium hydrosol and calendula hydrosol. I intend to make a soap to match, but from what I've read so far it doesn't seem like you get the bang-for-your-buck using hydrosols in soap as you do in body butter. Even so, I'm not sure how to incorporate hydrosols into my soap calculator. If I add hydrosols to the lye water, should I do that after the lye has processed and cooled? Thanks for your input!

 

[NewlyCreative]

I made soap last week with a hydrosol. I I froze the hydrosol and used it as water to make the lye. The scent came through. Because I didn’t measure the hydrodol first before freezing I had to make up the difference with distilled water.

 

[MomInWA]

I made soap last week with a hydrosol. I I froze the hydrosol and used it as water to make the lye. The scent came through. Because I didn’t measure the hydrodol first before freezing I had to make up the difference with distilled water.

Thank you, that's good information! I think this batch (being my third in soap-making) I may skip the hydrosols. I am going to see what happens with the recipe and then make adjustments when I feel more confident in my skills. Making soap is such a fun challenge!

 

[NewlyCreative]

Thank you, that's good information! I think this batch (being my third in soap-making) I may skip the hydrosols. I am going to see what happens with the recipe and then make adjustments when I feel more confident in my skills. Making soap is such a fun challenge!

I understand completely. I wanted to make soap but had no fragrance oil for soap so thought I’d try it to see what happened. My essential oil attempts were not sticking the fragrance and I had some neroli hydrosol that I didn’t know what to do with!

 

[DeeAnna]

There is a much smaller amount of scent chemicals in a hydrosol compared with the amount of scent chemicals in an essential oil made from the same botanical material.

With EOs, we typically dose soap at 3% or sometimes more based on the total weight of fats. (that assumes the EO is skin safe at that dosage)

The amount of fragrance chemicals in a hydrosol is lower than the EO, so even if you use hydrosol for 100% of the water in the recipe, you won't get a 3% dosage of fragrance in the soap.

It's possible with some hydrosols to have some scent survive saponification, but don't expect the fragrance to be strong nor to last a long time.

 

[NewlyCreative]

There is a much smaller amount of scent chemicals in a hydrosol compared with the amount of scent chemicals in an essential oil made from the same botanical material.

With EOs, we typically dose soap at 3% or sometimes more based on the total weight of fats. (that assumes the EO is skin safe at that dosage)

The amount of fragrance chemicals in a hydrosol is lower than the EO, so even if you use hydrosol for 100% of the water in the recipe, you won't get a 3% dosage of fragrance in the soap.

It's possible with some hydrosols to have some scent survive saponification, but don't expect the fragrance to be strong nor to last a long time.

Well I guess that is the big question - how long will the scent last. For now it is very strong. I’ll report back after 2 months.

I was amazed that the scent survived saponification as well as it did, but survive it did.

The hydrodol scent itself is very strong - like I can’t get the scent out of the mold I froze it in with detergent, vineger, alcohol, 20 minute continuous water rinse. I’m open to suggestions here to get my ice trays not to smell of neroli.

 

[MomInWA]

I understand completely. I wanted to make soap but had no fragrance oil for soap so thought I’d try it to see what happened. My essential oil attempts were not sticking the fragrance and I had some neroli hydrosol that I didn

Well now I’m curious which brand of hydrosol you used! The two I have are from Mountain Rose Herbs, one of my top two favorite suppliers.

 

[cmzaha]

As DeeAnna mentioned you has much less scent chemicals in Hydrosols than in EO and Fragrance Oils. Also keep in mind Hydrosols are basically like using a scented water and water evaparates in soap so good luck with scent retention. If you are having trouble with scent retention maybe you need to try EO's from other suppliers or different EO blends. Not all EO's are good at scent retention and their fo counterparts are better to use if you want scent retention. Remember soapmaking is a long learning curve and actually we or I never stopped learning. As for fragrances and scents it is simply trial, testing and reading reviews, but mostly testing. I have used scents that long time soapmakers here in the forum says are super strong with fantantastic scent retention which did not work out for me at all. So you just never know.

 

[NewlyCreative]

MominWA
The supplier is Moksha Essentials

I did formula botanica’s free into class and Moksha was a recommended US supplier who had a premade kit for the class. 250 ml neroli hydrosol came with the kit (I needed 10 ml for the project, so I had this ultra scented orange water lying around and thought why not try.

As DeeAnna mentioned you has much less scent chemicals in Hydrosols than in EO and Fragrance Oils. Also keep in mind Hydrosols are basically like using a scented water and water evaparates in soap so good luck with scent retention. If you are having trouble with scent retention maybe you need to try EO's from other suppliers or different EO blends. Not all EO's are good at scent retention and their fo counterparts are better to use if you want scent retention. Remember soapmaking is a long learning curve and actually we or I never stopped learning. As for fragrances and scents it is simply trial, testing and reading reviews, but mostly testing. I have used scents that long time soapmakers here in the forum says are super strong with fantantastic scent retention which did not work out for me at all. So you just never know.

I’m not arguing any of this, lol. I’m amazed the scent survived lye (in addition every cleaning solution in my house, soap, vinegar, and power wash dilution with water). That is really all I’m saying here. If it evaporates away so be it, but the scent itself survived saponification.

I’d seen the hydrosol question come up more than once and just wanted to add my experience.

Also - this isn’t anything you’d cook with - it’s not like rose or orange water you’d get at the grocery store. Whatever this is it’s a cloudy highly scented liquid that will etch the finish off say the plastic top of a scale the same as EOs and FOs have. I cannot scrub the residue it formed with the lye water out of my plastic container either. I took a thick wire bristled grout scrubber to the residue and nothing.

 

[AliOop]

@NewlyCreative that doesn’t sound like a hydrosol. I wonder if it was mislabeled?

 

[NewlyCreative]

@NewlyCreative that doesn’t sound like a hydrosol. I wonder if it was mislabeled?

@AliOop

Here is a link to the product.

https://mokshaessentials.com/collections/hydrosol/products/neroli-hydrosol?variant=33191550289
It does say it is 5x concentrated compared to a typical hydrosol.

 

[AliOop]

It does say it is 5x concentrated compared to a typical hydrosol.

That explains a lot, thank you.