What do you do with leftover bits of FO's?

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MrsZ

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I have bought a lot of tiny tester bottles of fragrance oils. Some of them I loved, and have reordered. But out of the ones I don't plan to reorder, I am left with a ton of tiny bottles of fragrance oils with just a little bit left, not enough for a whole batch of soap. Some of them I have blended together to make enough of a different scent for a batch of soap. Just curious, what are you all do with your leftover fragrance oils?
 
I try to blend them, as you do. For the most part, I order enough FO (2 1-ounce or 1 2-ounce) bottles to make a full size batch so I can use it up. If I want to do a test for ricing/discoloration, I will take a little batter from a different batch of soap I am making and make one bar (I increase my batch size a little to allow for that).

With the IFRA changes, some of the FOs I like now have such a small usage rate in soap so I made wax melts with them. With FOs that I didn't like OOB, or for whatever reason, I put them on my local Buy Nothing FB group. Someone usually takes them within a couple of hours.
 
@dibbles , @AliOop,

I like the wax melts idea. How do you make your wax melts? I have a sister in law that loves wax melts and would love to make some for her.
I think that idea originally came from @Carly B.

I had some soy wax that I don't use often for soap, so I used that at first. They were just for me/a few others. They were fine, but when I ran out of soy wax I decided to buy a soy wax made for tarts. What I didn't like about the soy (GW415) was they were a little softer and had a lot of frosting (like ash) on them. If you are only making white melts, that isn't an issue. I was able to use up the soy wax I had on hand,

I still have a lot of FOs to get out of storage so I bought this wax. It is harder and the fragrance seems to be lasting longer. I just line an old rimmed baking sheet with parchment and pour the wax on that. When it is set I just break it into pieces - like peanut brittle (it doesn't take long, but I usually do this the next day). As I was going through excess 'stuff' I found two silicone oval guest size cavity molds I am no longer using, and those are working great as well. I don't fill those molds completely.
 
@dibbles , @AliOop,

I like the wax melts idea. How do you make your wax melts? I have a sister in law that loves wax melts and would love to make some for her.
Because I don't have any candle wax on hand, I looked for something using ingredients that I already had in my stash. Eventually I tried this recipe from The Nerdy Farm Wife, but with FO instead of EO, and without the natural colorants (because I was too impatient for infusing at that time).

With all the CO in the recipe, I was sure that they would be too soft, so I used some 96º CO that I had on hand, and poured them into little guest soap molds. They did feel greasy to the touch at first, but firmed up after a few days of air drying.

Overall the melts have been hit, and I plan to make some more for our Ladies' Christmas Boutique. I also plan to try making some with palm oil instead of CO96. Since I don't like PO in soap, if it works in wax melts, that will be an awesome way to use up the PO that I have on hand, too.

IMG_2948.jpeg
 
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It's funny you guys mention this as I have just spent the day yesterday learning how to make perfume with perfumers alcohol and also with almond oil, to use up the small amounts of FO's I have to make Christmas gifts. It only takes a small amount of FO to make a bottle of perfume. I just made a couple of perfume samples this morning using fresh cut roses with fresh vanilla and a peach perfection They smell pretty nice. I smell of 🌹 roses right now cause I put it on lol.😄
 
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Thanks for increasing my stress level so kindly reminding me how time is ticking away.

If you don't see me much on SMF for the next few weeks, it's @Relle's fault ;)
Yep, my fault, you could, just saying you could, make extra goodies and send via Oz, I am a lady too, I think :p and it is Christmas.hehe and if I didn't keep you on track who would.
 
I've used little bits of this and that fragrances that worked well in candles.
Then used them to make Incense sticks. Put them in wrapped little bundles as a gift set.

Found a box of scented incense sticks that I made 10+ years ago. Cool find.
Thought they would have lost some scent. Not at all.

Munky.









=
 
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