Overkill?

[Traumabrew]

I search the web often for handmade soaps for inspiration and ideas. Sometimes to verify my ideas as being viable and beneficial. While doing that today, I came across a sea salt and kelp soap that had the following ingredients

Ingredients: Organic Palm Oil*, Organic Coconut Oil and/or Organic Palm Kernel Oil*, Water, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Sodium Hydroxide**, Unrefined Shea Butter, Castor Oil, Bergamot Essential Oil, Rosewood Essential Oil, Cardamom Essential Oil, Geranium Essential Oil, Grapefruit Essential Oil, Basil Essential Oil, Lavender Essential Oil, Lemon Essential OIl, Lime Essential Oil, Sweet Myrrh Essential Oil, Patchouli Essential Oil, Black Pepper Essential Oil, Sandalwood Essential Oil, Tea Tree Essential Oil, Vetiver Essential Oil, Ylang Ylang Essential Oil, Natural Fragrance (Non-synthetic scent derived from essential oils and plant extracts), Sea Salt, Kelp Powder, Mineral Pigments


There is 16 essential oils plus natural fragrance in this soap. Is that overkill in the EO department? Using that many different EO's in 1 soap would lead me to believe the actual amounts of each EO would be minuscule and offer no benefit. Also, I would imagine the odor/aroma would be very muddy.

Am I missing something? The EO's listed are not cheap and some are downright absurd in their cost.

 

[bathgeek]

I have no answer, but am following this thread to see what more informed folks say!

 

[Cellador]

It depends on how it's done. I have made some EO blends that literally had a couple of drops of a certain EO added, which changed the scent ever so slightly. Those blends can end-up with a ton of EOs, even though you can't single them out, scent-wise.
I also wonder...since they have listed "Organic Coconut Oil and/or Organic Palm Kernel Oil", maybe this is a catch-all label? Perhaps this soap does not contain all of these ingredients, and they prefer to have one label for every type of soap they carry?

 

[Traumabrew]

Can they do an all encompassing label? I think that would be fraudulent to list ingredients on the label that were not actually in the soap.

 

[Primrose]

If there's 16 EOs what the hell is "Natural Fragrance" and why is it needed?

 

[SaltedFig]

They might have a scent blend that is their "signature" blend, which might not come out the same in soap, but would still be part of a range?

What made me this of this is that one of popular blends that has been around here for decades, the Meditation Blend. They claim 12 oils in theirs (and there's quite a few on both their list and the one you've put up), and they make a soap in their range which lists the oils (which looks like a lot, but melds together to make a complex and interesting scent).

 

[Traumabrew]

I guess I can see the potential of 16 EO's to create a specific smell. I mean KFC has a blend of 12 herbs and spices right?

But, when I see someone using EO's, I also think about the potential therapeutic effects and with that many I would not expect much in that department. I know we cant list our soap as having any special properties or make claims of such, but people look for specific blends of EO's for that purpose.

 

[cmzaha]

"Therapeutic effects" in soap is not going to mean much unless it is in a M&P soap base. No one really knows what properties actually survive lye, and I guess not much, but it washes down the drain

 

[earlene]

It's a wash off product, so therapeutic effect is just not a reasonable expectation for soap.

I have seen all encompassing labels before on soap and did not like that practice either. I want to know if it is CO or PKO, etc.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

If there's 16 EOs what the hell is "Natural Fragrance" and why is it needed?

Picking up on what Salted Fig said, there's a thing in perfumery called a "fougere" that's created by combining several different essential oils to lay a foundation for signature fragrances.

From my notes, with apologies for not having saved a link to the source:

BASIC RECIPE FOR MAKING A FOUGERE

This fougere recipe is a basic formula, which will prove helpful for your further creative work in the realm of composing fougere perfumes of all types. Many other materials can be added to give one’s fougere creation, giving it its own unique character.

We find floral fougeres, amber fougeres, spicy fougeres, leather fougeres, fresh fougeres, precious woods fougeres, etc. This means that there are countless ways to modify this fragrance! There is almost no category of fougere that would, in the end, be anything short of marvelous--as the core ingredients of a fougere go well with almost every fragrant material.

In short, this core base has the unique property of harmonizing and rounding almost any essences that are added to it, as well as lending very good fixative qualities to the composition.

So my take on it is that the 16 essential oils comprise the fougere and the "Natural Fragrance" is a single note or proprietary blend of essential oils which dominates the soap.

 

[BattleGnome]

The brand of beard shampoo my husband used to use had a similar list of essential oils on the label. When I looked up most of them, they had therapeutic properties for certain hair types. To me this looks like a similar list of therapeutic oils at probably not a therapeutic dose to make a pretty scent.