Folded Essential Oils - UK

[AndyRoo]

Hello all,

I've been trying to make some citrus EO soaps but as we all know the scent dissipates fast, so I've been looking for somewhere in the UK that sells folded EOs?

I can find one place that sells 5 & 10 fold Orange EOs but at prices that wouldn't even make the soap worth making because no one would be able to afford to buy it.

Mystic Moments do a 5 fold orange, but I always find their fragrances weak and oddly chemically.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
Andy

 

[Tara_H]

I got some 10 fold orange from the soap kitchen recently - from what I recall the price wasn't outrageous...

 

[Zing]

I can't help you with vendor recommendations. Just popping in to say that I've had good luck combining litsea cubeba with 10x citruses for sticking the scent. Good luck,

 

[Zany_in_CO]

A couple of things come to mind, experimental of course. I'm currently blending EO with a complementary FO to stick the scent. Unfortunately, I'm not able to soap as often as I'd like and I no longer have an outlet for selling (retired). So, I can't speak from experience but that's one thing to try.
A dry ingredient like clay or, in this case, powdered orange peel might do the trick.
I also think adding 10% soy wax or orange wax might help stick the scent.

HTH

 

[AndyRoo]

I got some 10 fold orange from the soap kitchen recently - from what I recall the price wasn't outrageous...

Sadly, it's £150 per litre... which would mean charging about £8 per soap with the recipe I am using!

 

[AndyRoo]

I can't help you with vendor recommendations. Just popping in to say that I've had good luck combining litsea cubeba with 10x citruses for sticking the scent. Good luck,

All I can seem to find in folded citruses in the UK is Orange. I'd kill to get hold of a Grapefruit one too.

 

[Basil]

A couple of things come to mind, experimental of course. I'm currently blending EO with a complementary FO to stick the scent. Unfortunately, I'm not able to soap as often as I'd like and I no longer have an outlet for selling (retired). So, I can't speak from experience but that's one thing to try.
A dry ingredient like clay or, in this case, powdered orange peel might do the trick.
I also think adding 10% soy wax or orange wax might help stick the scent.

HTH

@AndyRoo to build on what @Zany_in_CO said, and thanks to her earlier suggestion, I started added the EO's in melted soy wax and refrigerating over night. I have settled on 15% soy in my recipe as I stopped using palm, but I can't use more than that as I also use goat milk. Anyway, I'm just holding on to some bars to see how long the scent lasts. I started this in Jan this year. This past week I've heated the soy wax up to around 150, add the EO with kaolin clay mixed in, and let it cool to around 105 (like the directions say for candles )then I add to the other oils. Then, lol, I add the goat milk lye mixture when all the oils have cooled to about 86 degrees. The citrus EOs I've been trying are orange 10x, lime, litsea, lemon and bergamot, but I've tried others too. I'll guess we'll see how many months the scent holds...keeping the soy wax in the refrigerator over night with the EOs is kinda like having a scented wax melt the next day! When I've done that, I reheat the wax pretty slow the next day. Don't ask me why. Just seems to make sense All experimental at this point.

 

[AndyRoo]

I'm going to try the clay thing. I wish there were more folded EOs that we could buy here in the UK, but it looks like the only one in existence here is 5x or 10x orange (which is ridiculously expensive). I guess there must be some kind of safety concern about the others or something.

I know we have them for a reason, but I do wish some of our rules over here were slightly more relaxed like they are in the USA. It always seems like you guys can get away with so much more!!

 

[Tara_H]

would mean charging about £8 per soap with the recipe I am using

As a matter of interest, how much are you using in your recipe? I made a batch with the soap kitchen one the other day and it's not working out anything close to that.

It's an ingredient at 22% in a blend with other EO and FO, and can definitely be detected at that amount, using 12g of the blend in a batch of soap with 450g of oils. I don't sell, but I use SM3 to track recipes, costs etc, and for that batch it is estimating a cost per bar (including labour at around minimum wage) of €2.01.

Not that it's any of my business obviously... just curious as to how it's working out so expensive for you to use. Please ignore if none of this is of any use

 

[AndyRoo]

So, £155 per litre and a normal batch and we assume that 1ml of EO is the weight equivalent of 1g, in my normal recipe I would use 34.2g of EO. £155/1,000 = £5.30 for a 820g loaf of soap. The other ingredients for that amount of batter probably come to about the same, maybe a bit less.

So I am going split the diff and say it costs me £10 to make an 820g loaf. Let's assume that this whole thing takes me an hour to make, and I add minimum wage (£8.91) then the cost per the bar is £18.91. From this, I'll get 10 bars. £1.89 per bar... not too tragic and I could sell them at £4 per bar, but then once I've paid for the website / labels / seller fees / packaging on top of that... I slowly starve to death while I try to pay for the mortgage, bills and food.

Although admittedly the cost of making a bar with one of the more expensive FOs is about the same. Although a typical loaf that size only costs me about £11, so is easier to justify a £4.5 - £5 price tag on it. From a commercial perspective, unless you're selling the same amount as Lush, you don't have much wiggle room.

 

[Tara_H]

I guess if you're looking to cover all of your costs of living that explains why you need to mark them up so much! Presumably the question of how many soaps of various kinds you can actually move will factor heavily into that equation too, but from what I understand you're not actually selling yet? But planning to start soon?

 

[Zany_in_CO]

£155/1,000 = £5.30 for a 820g loaf of soap. The other ingredients for that amount of batter probably come to about the same, maybe a bit less.

That is typical when using essential oils to fragrance soap. It really adds to the bottom line. At that point you have to ask yourself, what can I do to improve my profit margin? Easy answer, don't add fragrance. BUT. As we like to say around here, "Fragrance sells!".

I don't want to throw a wet blanket on your dream, but from the beginning of my journey in 2004 I've said, "You can't make a living selling soap!" It's better to sell something like real estate or luxury yachts where you can realize a nice income from just one sale.

I've met a lot of soapers on my journey and very few have made a living at it. Most have a day job, a partner who is financially stable, or a trust fund, whatever, to support what is an expensive hobby at best, and one that pays for supplies at the very least. My goal from the start was never a business but rather a hobby that paid its own way. 'Nuff said.

 

[AndyRoo]

That is typical when using essential oils to fragrance soap. It really adds to the bottom line. At that point you have to ask yourself, what can I do to improve my profit margin? Easy answer, don't add fragrance. BUT. As we like to say around here, "Fragrance sells!".

I don't want to throw a wet blanket on your dream, but from the beginning of my journey in 2004 I've said, "You can't make a living selling soap!" It's better to sell something like real estate or luxury yachts where you can realize a nice income from just one sale.

I've met a lot of soapers on my journey and very few have made a living at it. Most have a day job, a partner who is financially stable, or a trust fund, whatever, to support what is an expensive hobby at best, and one that pays for supplies at the very least. My goal from the start was never a business but rather a hobby that paid its own way. 'Nuff said.

This would just be a little side project. I work as a therapist and my partner also happens to be quite well off... my comment was really more to highlight the issue of production cost vs. sale price!