Sandalwood - anyone think it's worth the price?

[Amy Robinson]

I use commercial sandalwood in my soap, which seems to include essential oils and "fragrance materials" so falls between being an EO and an FO. Amyris is also supposed to smell like sandalwood, also called west indian sandalwood. But I have never tried it. My supplier (in the uk unfortunately) also does an amyris/sandalwwod blend. These options are all at least 10% of the cost of real sandalwood or less. I'm sure there are US suppliers that will do something similar. It is a rare thing for the UK to have something that the US doesn't!

Hi, How did you find the Sandlewood/Amyris Blend. Did it hold up well?, I thought about giving it a try.

 

[JuliaNegusuk]

Hi Amy. Sorry I haven't tried the sandalwood/amyris blend. I only noticed it when I was looking up stuff for this post. I have not seen it before so it must be a fairly new product. The commercial sandalwood is a strong scent and holds well. But Soap Kitchen keep changing the description so they don't entirely seem to now what it is, or at least are learning new things about it all the time. I've been using it for several years and only fairly recently they said it should be described as "parfum" as the blend of EOs was secret to their supplier. Then they updated the description again to say it contained "fragrance materials". Also being strong you don't need so much of it. I use it at about 2%. My supplier is Soap Kitchen if you want to give either of these a try.

Cheers

 

[Amy Robinson]

Thank you for your advice, I might just give the sandalwood/amyris blend a try.

 

[lsg]

The amyris I bought doesn't have much of a scent.

 

[cmzaha]

FO usage rates are figured on the total amount of oils/fats. Most reliable suppliers will list the maximum usage rate for soaps, lotions etc. You might use more slow moving oils, (ones that are liquid at room temp.) instead of butters, palm, lard, etc. Here is more info. on accelerating FOs.

https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-...how-to-work-with-accelerating-fragrance-oils/

I am not trying to start any arguments here, but I would really like to see where it is stated it is only used as a percentage of the oils, maybe this is the number the suppliers use in their calculators but where did the usage factor originate, is it from the manufacturer? The manufacturer my DB comes from only supplies the IFRA, and nothing else on the Certificate they send out. Even IFRA does not state the usage rate is based on oil weight. Not all liquid evaporates from soap and we also have other additives. When I make salt bars I am now adding a lot more weight to my soap since I use 100% of my oil weight and you can bet I up the fragrance usage.

To answer the original question, no I do not use Sandalwood EO as the cost is prohibitive. While Amyris smells good is just is not Sandalwood. Australian Sandalwood is $700-1900.00 lb.

 

[lsg]

cmzaha, when I started making soap it seems the standard advice was to use total oil weight. It seems that there is conflicting advice on the Internet. Some say to use total weight of soap while others say use total weight of oils.

This from https://www.soapalooza.com/blog/2013/12/how-much-fragrance-oil-should-i-use/
"Cold Process Soap: .5 oz to .8 oz per lb of base oils (3 – 5%)."

https://www.elementsbathandbody.com/Testing-Fragrances-in-CP-Soap/ states, ".5 oz to 1 oz FO per pound of soap oils is fairly standard."

 

[Kcryss]

cmzaha, when I started making soap it seems the standard advice was to use total oil weight. It seems that there is conflicting advice on the Internet. Some say to use total weight of soap while others say use total weight of oils.

This from https://www.soapalooza.com/blog/2013/12/how-much-fragrance-oil-should-i-use/
"Cold Process Soap: .5 oz to .8 oz per lb of base oils (3 – 5%)."

https://www.elementsbathandbody.com/Testing-Fragrances-in-CP-Soap/ states, ".5 oz to 1 oz FO per pound of soap oils is fairly standard."

I see a lot of the same thing and it always confuses me to some degree. I've never come across anything indicating how much to use for HP, which is what I do so I just use what is recommended for cold process. Should the amount be different for HP?

 

[lsg]

I can't speak for the others, but I use the same amount in HP. I don't do HP very often, so others may have more informed advice. Advice from Soap Queen is " Rebatch Soap: 0.4 ounces per pound." Brambleberry.com fragrance calculator does not have an option for HP soap, but does have a "rebatch" option.

 

[Kcryss]

I can't speak for the others, but I use the same amount in HP. I don't do HP very often, so others may have more informed advice. Advice from Soap Queen is " Rebatch Soap: 0.4 ounces per pound." Brambleberry.com fragrance calculator does not have an option for HP soap, but does have a "rebatch" option.

That's interesting. I would not have thought to think of it as rebatch, but it does make sense since the fragrance is added after the cook.

 

[cmzaha]

cmzaha, when I started making soap it seems the standard advice was to use total oil weight. It seems that there is conflicting advice on the Internet. Some say to use total weight of soap while others say use total weight of oils.

This from https://www.soapalooza.com/blog/2013/12/how-much-fragrance-oil-should-i-use/
"Cold Process Soap: .5 oz to .8 oz per lb of base oils (3 – 5%)."

https://www.elementsbathandbody.com/Testing-Fragrances-in-CP-Soap/ states, ".5 oz to 1 oz FO per pound of soap oils is fairly standard."

When I started the recommendation was also using oil weight. I really started questioning this when IFRA came into play. So they state soap Catagory 9 8% usage rate. Rate of what? This is why I question IFRA guidelines. Until IFRA guidelines came out I really never questioned the 1 oz ppo or 6%, but I normally used what worked in my soap. Also, it is not mandatory for Fragrance suppliers to submit their fo's for testing. I just think more soapmakers are questioning how the rate is based. I do usually find 6-6.8% of my total oil works for my fragrances, and feel we still need to implement common sense
.

 

[maxine289]

Yes, this is a very confusing topic. I like soap with a lot of scent but I also want to be safe. The IFRA guidelines may not be perfect, or even accurate, but they are some sort of a guide for a substance that can be irritating to the skin. I assume that IFRA is basing the usage rate on the total amount of the thing being produced, i.e. total soap recipe. But since I don't know for sure, I tend to try and find FO's with minimum rates of 9%. If FO has an IRFA usage rate of 9% or more, I use FO at the rate of 6% of the total recipe. So for a 94 oz. total of oils, lye & liquid, I would use 5.64 oz. (6% of 94 oz.). But if the IFRA rate is only 6% (about 1 oz./lb. of oil) I would only use 3.8 oz. FO because 5.64 oz. would be 8.8% of oils, which would exceed the IRFA of 6% for that particular FO. I may be being overly cautious, but it makes me feel better.

 

[IrishLass]

From the beginning of my soaping endeavors, I was taught to calculate FO as per pound of oils, and that's what I continue to do. Ever since reading through my copy of Essential Oil Safety by Tisserand/Young in which they shed some pretty interesting light on the infrastructure of IFRA and how they determine their guidelines, I no longer put them (IFRA's guidelines) on a lofty pedestal like I used to do. As it turns out, the per pound of oil usage rate of the FOs that I use turns out to be lower than the their max use guidelines anyway.


IrishLass