Sunday, January 5, 2014

Testing Fragrance Oils in 1 lb Soap Batch Results

I had previously blogged about my new Fragrance Oils I had purchased on a Black Friday Sale.  I took advantage of great prices on 1 oz size fragrance oils.  I went to www.candlemaking.com which is also a company called Aztec.  I've bought from them over the years and its a nice company to buy from.  They do an excellent job with customer service and ship really fast.  They have good prices as well.  I know there are so many suppliers out there, but I do want to say expand your horizons and at least try companies out you have never used before.  I do have my favorites too I will admit, and some seem like their prices are very high and I for one don't order from them.  The ones I am thinking about,  I feel that get all the glory and for what?  To pay higher prices?  No thanks I can use my money elsewhere.  And I do!

I have to say right now and I keep saying this even on my facebook page.  I am not out to
make a final bar when testing.  I may toss in a few colorants to give the soap some color but I am not 
trying to make a perfect bar,  this is just an experimental bar.  I have to consider how the fragrance behaved, if I had any acceleration, how long did I have to work with this fragrance the whole gamete of questions.
So what I am listing here is not the design I will come up with on the final soap.  I had bought 36 bottles of fragrances and I am in my testing phase and it would be hard for me to make a final bar just from one soaping batch.  

Also I need to consider the strength of the fragrance, will it hold up nicely and be strong enough in the final bars?  Some may say this is a waste of money and time.  I have to disagree since I have been disappointed before.  I want my soap to have a great scent.  If I lose that scent during saponification and through curing then I feel the fragrance did not live up to my standards.  So by testing this out I will know what fragrances I will order a larger bottle/quantity of.  This will narrow down my choices as to what fragrances I really love and want to work with.  And if this testing helps me it surely will help others who may stumble onto my blog and read my comments.  

I had posted this information on my facebook page so I am going to copy and paste some of this information here to speed up my time.  

And here so far is my results I will show on my trial batches:

******************************************************
The Fragrance oil is called Sea Minerals from  Aztec
This was my fragrance oil experiment and the fragrance did very well. I had plenty of time to make many colors and do layers of colors. Not the look this soap will get in the final end since this was an experiment. I will definitely buy a 8 oz bottle of this one. Nice clean, water, ozone, fresh, I love it. 
Plans are to rework the design and make my regular standard bars. 
This size is a test batch one pound size. I will list in my shop at a lower 
price.  Since again this is a experiment but well worth buying and trying this one.

Here is the description:
A refreshing blend of ocean breeze and apple peel with cool notes of blue lotus and eucalyptus and refreshing touches of sea botanical's and sandalwood. 

This will be reworked and be ready for my Spring/Summer line. Amazing!!

The name will be: Coral Reef Handmade Soap  



Another test batch fragrance. This one is also a keeper. It is called:
Cactus & Sea Salt. It's not fancy wasn't meant to be. I just used some colors and wanted to see how this one performed. It did really well with plenty of time to work with it. The "green" could have been a little darker I wanted to keep it on the soft side so in the photo it doesn't come through as green looks more beige. Argggah!

This won't be the final look since testing is just that. So I will buy most likely a 4 oz bottle for Spring/Summer and keep this one for warmer weather. It reminds me of what would be a spa scent, clean fresh, a little green, and kind of sweet.

Scent description:
Green, watery cactus accords mingle with fresh,
ozonic sea salt in this unique, clean fragrance combination.

Exactly as described. Glad I chose this one to try out (fragrance that is).
I used glycerin curl embeds to add some white to the bar of soap. Well to use up my glycerin curls I can't lie.




 This is called Oak Moss. And I had received a sample from another company and I did like it. But when I ordered from the Black Friday sale online I ordered their version of Oak Moss and it is so much better. I did compare the two once I got my order in and I like this version better. 
So with that said here is the description:

A blend of Jasmine & Rose on an undertone of cedar wood and patchouli with a strong background of moss.

I personally do not get the Jasmine or rose in this fragrance but I do smell the Cedar Wood (not a piney scent at all) patchouli (lightly detected) and the moss scent is kind of earthy not too strong, but like a cool moist forest floor. This is a phenomenal scent and so worth trying. I adore this scent.
This is a Unisex scent in my opinion and also can be geared towards Men who should love this as well.

I will buy a bigger bottle of fragrance on this one. I have a great time using this oil in my soap and can't wait to find just the right look for this in my final design. Can't wait to see if the color changes. So much to look forward to.


This is another test batch (not going to be my final design) just played around some since I had extra glycerin embeds/curls to use up. 
This is called Tobacco and I shied (shy-ed) away from using this one for fear that it would not be very good. How wrong I was!!

Fragrance description: Dead ON!!
Delectable creamy vanilla and dark brown sugar
mix together with smoky tobacco and mahogany woods.

This would be considered a great Man's fragrance indeed. But I do think this is Unisex too. So I would most likely list it as that. It does have that sugary smells with the vanilla & Brown Sugar so it's kind of sweet and woodsy at the same time. Just a hint of maybe pipe tobacco or smoke.
Do not think cigarettes not even in the same category.

I will definitely keep this scent it is amazing!! Great to work with no problems and I had plenty of time to play with this one even though the design doesn't show this. Not my final design when I do make this soap.
I think this might darken just a tad. It's a caramel color now so we will see. Lots of factors to consider in my final product so I have to see how these test batches go. Loving it so far.





I do have one more fragrance I did make during this trial batch of (5) but my photo turned out blurry and by the time I wanted to get the photo just right, the lighting in my house was getting dark.  I will post the last one as soon as I can find the best way to get a clear photo.  Today is rainy, dreary, somewhat foggy hum looks like I should pray for a better day.  So until next time I hope you take note of the fragrances here in case your a little intrigued on new scents.  I will also post again in a few weeks with editing this page to show hopefully the final bars as they continue to cure and possibly change.  

Also this page will continue on with newly added bars and notes as I get through my experimenting.  So please check back and even if you have read the previous posts scroll down to see newly added information.  This is a work in progress FYI.  Thanks :)







No comments:

Post a Comment