Help needed with scents

[Serene Cream]

Hi all

I've so far made 2 batches of soap both about 800g total weight. I am using a combination of essential oils to scent - the first batch I used about 10ml of essential oil, the second I only used 5ml. The first batch is just over a week out of the mould and doesn't smell anything like the essential oils I used. The second batch I just unmoulded today and it smells horrible! What am I doing wrong? Is 5 or 10mls of essential oil not enough to scent an 800g batch? Or do I need to wait for the soap to cure before the smell improves?

Thanks in advance

Debbie

 

[carebear]

depending on the essential oils you will probably need between 30 and 60 grams (or mls is probably close enough) for an 800 gram batch (assuming that 800 is the weight of your oils).

and citrus essential oils generally disappear even when you use a lot (orange & lemon especially, and lime too), though there are citrus-types that stick (lemongrass comes to mind, and litsea cubea)

 

[live4suds]

Well, let's see... Depending on which essential oil, I usually use around .7 ounces EO per pound of carrier oils. My soaps are on the medium to strong side. If my math's correct, at .7 ounces per pound of carrier oils, I add my essential oils at approximately 4.375% to my oils.

In order for you to use the same EO strength as me, you should be using about 34.96 grams of essential oils for an 800 gram batch. ha.. let's just say 35. Sorry, the mathematician was coming out in me!

I measure everything out by weight. It probably makes things a bit easier and more accurate instead of measuring one thing in liquid measurements and another thing in solid measurements. Have fun and let us know how you do on your next batch!

 

[Serene Cream]

Thanks for the replies - well it does look like I am not using enough. Will have to increase the amount of eo and see how I go.

Seems that your costs can quickly escalate when using eo's and good quality oils. How do you all go about keeping your costs down when you are making your soaps to sell? What is the average mark up on a bar of soap?

Cheers Debbie

 

[kellyc]

Id love to know the answers to these questions too! Im thinking of selling and sometimes see people selling 100g soaps for around £2.50 and think - how the hell do they make any money?!

 

[carebear]

buy in bulk

 

[TheGardener]

buy in bulk

I agree with Carebear. You have to buy your eo's in bulk. It's much cheaper. I sell my 4.4 oz. bars of soap for $4.50 Cdn. It costs me approx. $1.50-$2.00 per bar to make depending on which eo's I use and I stay away from the more expensive eo's. Some of the soapers in this area sell at $5.00 Cdn per bar. I'm not sure how that equates in your currency. I'm thinking of putting my price up to $4.95 per bar next year. Not sure yet.

 

[live4suds]

Buying in bulk definitely does help a lot. But when you first start out, sometimes that's impossible. It's true, essential oils do add a lot to the cost of each bar and can eat into profit, but IMHO I think it's worth it. One thing you can do to keep costs low is create blends that use a combination of more expensive sought after oils and some less expensive oils. I'm going to be making a straight patchouli EO bar coming up pretty soon and it's going to add about $1.00 - $1.30 per bar. I'm thinking about doing some combos like mint/patchouli and orange patchouli to bring the price down a bit and I bet they will sell almost as well to those patchouli lovers... I hope. Still debating. But my point is, creating some blends that people will like can help lower your costs.