essential oil????

[MrsMakeSoap]

essential oil seems to be thrown around so easily and i know ther are a few differant methods to extract the oil so forgive me if this question alarms you :shock:

could you for example use the juice of certain produce as opposed to their essential oil. Lemon is something id like to use and i know the 'product', would probably expire faster, but would you ever use it instead????

 

[WilsonFamilyPicnic]

lemon juice and essential oil are two very different things. lemon EO is pressed from the peel.

lemon juice is acidic, acid neutralizes bases (lye is a base). although, lemon juice won't neutralize all your lye since its not that strong. also, i don't know if the lemon smell would come through CP.

perhaps in a rebatch (handmilled) soap? a friend lent me "the complete soapmaker" which is mostly handmilled soap recipes and one is lemon juice in glycerin soap.

 

[MrsMakeSoap]

hey thanks a lot I didn't realize but citrus's do hold an oily spray in their pores. I love squeezing it so it sprays the room and smells like citrus spray DUHHH i should have figured

 

[IanT]

in a batch of soap i made i used alot of the citrus rind, this is where a large percentage of the EO's are located within all citrus...I used a zester and zested 3 lemons, added it to my 2lb batch of soap along with some lemon EO (i wish i had more to add but i only had a littttle bit...so the scent wasnt as strong as it could have been) I noticed that the rind did have a sort of fixative effect and provided a little background scent but nothing too pungent, if you add the rind in at trace, my theory is that through the heat of the sap process the EO's are cooked out of the rind and diffuse into the soap.

 

[Woodi]

Well, if you like to scent your soaps fairly strongly (I do- cuz I make soap 6 months in advance of sales), then the lye will kill the scent of most fresh ingredients, like lemon rind, herbs and spices, lavender buds, flowers etc....

I would LOVE it if scents didn't fade so quickly. So I use a lot of eo. (1/2 ounce by weight ppo). Then when cured, I keep my soaps in a lidded plastic box, and air them out once a week for a few hours.

But it's fun to use fresh stuff.....and you can put it on the label. There is something in the trade called: "label appeal", so it can't hurt to put the stuff into the soap. Don't forget about 'placebo effect'.

In the 7 years I've been making it, I have tried so many things in soap, for fun and experimentation. Have fun with it! Report whatever you do here. and DO keep a journal of each batch - it's fun to go back in time and see what you used to do, your soaping history.