Lemon question

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jarvan

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I noted a couple of recipes calling for lemon essential oil. I creating a recipe that I will be trying that I am hoping will mimic Burt's Bees bar soap for men. My husband loves that soap. I have all the EOs that it calls for except for lemon.

My question is this. Can I make a strong lemon water (not using the pulp, but rather boiling or cooking the rind until it releases it's oils) and use that in place of plain water and get the lemon into the recipe that way? Does it have to be and EO. I know people can use things like tea, coffee, floral waters. I just didn't know about the lemon since there will be more citric acid.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Jen
 
I'm not expert but if you plan to mix the lemon water with the lye, I would say it probably won't work. The few experiments I have tried mixing teas with lye made ok soap but the color and scent of the tea changed drastically (think: smelled to high heaven and turned a lovely brown color).

I'm not sure this would work but, you could maybe try making a really concentrated lemon water and adding it at trace or in HP.
Good luck!
 
the citric acid won't be an issue, but I doubt you'd get much if any aroma from it in your soap. your house will smell lovely tho.
 
Try drying some lemon zest and then pulverising it into a powder in your coffee grinder. I'm having much success with my grinder.
 
And FWIW, I infused oil with orange rind (and lemon balm) for CP soap. The scent I got... nada. (Although, as carebear noted, the house smelled delightful). I don't know if I could have gotten more scent by using more rind/grinding smaller/double or triple infusing. When I've infused other things (cedar, sage, rosemary, lavender), I've had a much better result.
 

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