Newbie w/question re: pet spritz & bakery scents? Help!

[ElisabethA]

Hi All!

I am SO glad to have found this board!!! I'm brand new to this FO stuff, but my "regular" business is making baby carriers, and there is a really active and super-helpful forum website for that industry. I was really hoping there was an equivalent for fragrance folks - and there is! Woot!

I hope I'm posting in the right place for my question. What I'm making (or trying to make) is pet spritzes. I am launching a new website of dog accessories, and I have a whole page of spritzes all ready to go, except some of them are smelling funky now! (Luckily I started small to test and haven't made big batches of anything yet.) I haven't gone through and re-tested all 12 scents yet, but the problem seems to be with the bakery/candy scents. I have a "buttercream cupcake" and a "cotton candy". They smell fine in the bottle, but when I spray them on *anything*, my dog, myself, linens, anything - the smell seems to turn quickly as it dries into a really funky, unpleasant, kind of musty smell. The non-bakery scents seem to be okay - stuff like cucumber melon, coconut lime, etc.

I have a variety of ingredients from different sources, but the main recipe I'm using is the pet spritz base from WSP, fragrance oils from a seller on Etsy, and Poly 20 from... I forget where. Essential Wholesale I think. So the main batch of test bottles I made was: 2.75 oz of base, 1.5-2 ml of FO, and 2-3 drops of Poly 20. I used a new plastic dropper with each the oils, and it went into new metal bottles with new plastic spray tops. It all seems to have worked fine, except for the cupcake and cotton candy. Once I discovered that those scents were off, I tried making more test bottles. They all went to funkytown. I had some other brands of ingredients to test with, so I made bottles using every combination of the WSP base, the body/linen base from Essential Wholesale, the Etsy FO, and a cupcake FO from WSP. Also with AND without adding Poly 20, just in case that was the issue. ALL the new test bottles came out smelling weird when sprayed. I *really* want to have some fun candy/bakery scents, but I'm really at the end of my rope here! I must be doing something wrong, but I don't know what!

Finally, to add a wrinkle to the mystery, I can tell you that there is one - count it, *ONE* - bottle of cupcake spritz from my original batch of test bottles that came out fine, smells yummy when sprayed and stays smelling yummy. But of course, I have *no* idea what I did to that one that was any different than any of the other bottles. As far as I recall it was just the same old recipe I used on everything else. (I made those bottles about a month ago and made a bunch of scents, so I can't remember making each individual bottle, but as far as I know I did the same thing on each one.) I can't even fathom why that one came out different than all the funky-smelling ones. But it tells me that the issue isn't in my supplies, but my recipe or my technique? I have no idea! I'm so confused!

If anyone has any insight they can lend, I'd be eternally grateful. I'm (obviously) very new at this, so it's very possible it's some super-basic error I'm making. If there's a newbie instructions thread or something I could be pointed to, that might be something I need. TIA, and apologies for this being so long!

Elisabeth

 

[carebear]

first I must ask if you intend this to be sprayed on dogs, and if yes have you checked to ensure your fragrances are safe for dogs to ingest.

i know some essential oils - like lavender - are toxic to cats even in very small amounts, and beyond safe for dogs, I'd want to be super sure that people know that what may be safe for their dog might not be for the cat.

i don't know about your packaging - but maybe something reacts with the metal? did you try with plastic?

 

[ElisabethA]

I'm waiting on an answer about which fragrances are dog-safe. I have warnings on the label which state the product is not to be used on cats. (My cat would scratch my face off if I even *tried* to spray her with anything, but I guess some people have more cooperative felines.)

I thought about the metal-reaction possibility, so I tried plastic bottles and got the same result. I even considered some bizarre reaction with the sprayer, so I tried applying some via plastic dropper and bypassing the sprayer altogether, and I also got the same result. I also tried applying the base with no oil and the oil with no base, and both were fine individually, resulting in either no scent (the base) or true scent (the oil). It must be something about how I'm combining them which is messing everything up. Super-weird that I get the same reaction with oils and bases from different sources - so it's not like it's a reaction with one particular base, or a bad batch of oil from a particular retailer. (I'm doing all this experimentation on textiles, not on my pet - don't worry!)

All I can figure is it must have something to do with the vanilla content in the bakery/candy scents? I saw THIS THREAD which sounds like the person is having a very similar reaction to what I'm finding. If I didn't have that *one* bottle turn out well, I'd be more inclined just to chuck the whole idea. But clearly it can be done, if I can just figure out the magic formula... :?

 

[Soapy Gurl]

Since carebear has spoken about pet safety, I just want to add please include a warning for ALL small animals, not just cats.

What does your usage percentage work down to? Essential Wholesale recommends no more than 1% be added to their body/linen spray. I have an email from them. Could you be over scenting?

 

[ElisabethA]

If I did the math right I'm only using .25% (or lower on some of the stronger scents). I don't know what's going on. I guess I'll just have to eliminate any scents with vanilla in them. Which is a bummer, since wanting a nice cupcake scent for my own dog was what got me started down this path in the first place.

I can broaden the wording on my warning - this is all still in the testing phase so nothing has gone out yet.