Lye vs essential oils

[mattiesoap]

new here - does anyone know of research showing how lye impacts the benefits of essential oils? Wondering if any of the beneficial properties of eo actually survive the process and if the extra cost of eos is justified what with the high quality fragrance oils now available. Just wondering.

 

[jennikate]

Pretty much unless you do HP soap the lye monster eats its way through everything. Eo versus FO personal choice. I use mostly FO but I do have lavender EO also.

 

[soapopera]

Interested to know too as I would love to just use EO. So far I'm using 2% EO and the scents really fade quite a lot when it reaches a one month cure.

 

[BakingNana]

You can get a lot of debate going on this one. My own personal opinion is that the therapeutic benefits of EO are pretty much lost in soap, between the lye monster and the fact that it is soap--it washes off. I think people use EOs when they want to use a natural-type product versus a synthetic-type product (FO). Essential oils almost always fade in soap. I use mainly FOs because of their staying power and the variety of fragrance I can get, besides the fact that they're so much cheaper.

 

[mattiesoap]

Thanks for the input - very much appreciated and helpful!

 

[Woodi]

I've been going over this for 10 years, and came to this conclusion:

If you want therapeutic effects from your essential oils, use them plain or in lotion or mixed into a nice oil, like vitamin E with almond.

I do sell a lot of soaps scented with eo's because people like them better than most fake-smelling fo's.

Unless we are doctors, we're not supposed to advertise any "healing effects' nor "health benefits" from our soap.