FO question

[Catscankim]

I have been making my soaps at the default soapcalc 3%. now that first my soaps have cured 6-8 weeks, i am finding that most of the scents have dissipated to nothing unless you really put your nose on it, except a few stronger ones like pumpkin spice. The whole spare bedroom smells like nothing but pumpkin spice even though all of my soaps are in there. Kinda worried that my lighter scented soaps are going to all smell like pumpkin spice eventually lol.

so i am going out of my comfort zone (by comfort zone, i mean budget lol) and going for more FO per batch.

If a fo suggests up to 5%....can i do 6? Or is that absolute? The particular FO in question is Holiday Sangria from BA.. I really want this to stick, plus its pretty much exactly what i have in the bottle at 6% lol.

This FO smells amazing.

 

[atiz]

I would probably stick to the recommended safety usage; higher than that could cause some irritation. Although that 1% difference is quite small.
I have (inadvertently) gone over safety limits by much bigger margin (like.... 5% instead of 1%?!), and it was fine. But I would not gift that soap, and I'm just using it as a hand soap.

 

[bookreader451]

Some scents will fade even at the maximum usage rates. When purchasing FO read the reviews many times they mention scent retention. I use 5% unless a particular FO has a lower usage rate. If I have a 2 oz sample I usually throw it all in when making a 2 lbs batch it is .35 oz more than 5% .

Back to the first point, read the reviews. They are very helpful when making choices.