I made a test batch of soap with the fragrance Strawberries and Champagne. I had ordered it ages ago as a sample looking for a nice sweet strawberry. This wasnt it, at all. This scent has just a hint of strawberry and has a significant ‘perfume’ smell. I didnt like it at all but one of my customers was crazy for it so I did a test batch. That batch showed slight acceleration, but nothing that would cause any problems even with swirling. It didnt discolor and the fragrance stayed true and very strong through cure. So I made a full batch of it about a month ago. My plan was for a light yellowish body with a light pink swirl. I also had a thought about working some ‘champagne’ bubbles into the soap. Usually air bubbles in soap is totally undesirable but with the fragrance of this soap I decided to give it a shot. I have never purposely tried to work bubbles into soap before so I didnt know how it would turn out. I hesitated and then said to heck with it and began with my stick blender working it up and down making sure to bring air into the soap. It was getting pretty thick so I worked as much in as I could and swirled in the pink soap and poured it into my mould. A month later now it looks great. When I cut it I decided I would have liked a few more bubbles in there but the affect is there. The scent is fabulous, this oil was not the expensive type I usually buy so my expectations weren’t very high at all. I was pleasantly surprised!
I did a test batch of soap with Blueberry fragrance oil several months ago and was happy with the results. No acceleration, no discoloration and the scent stayed sweet and true. So I soaped this a month ago. Much to my surprise it discolored- this was the same oil from the same company. I was puzzled. I used the same ratio of fragrance to soap as in my test batch. I had portioned my raw soap out into two different bowls, I added the fragrance to the majority of the soap along with some titanium dioxide- I was looking for something blueberry ice cream like. The second portion I added blueberry fibres and some purple and blue dye but no fragrance oil or titanium dioxide. Well now its a month later and suddenly the scent has faded. Im not sure whats going on with that! I am curious if the company didnt change their formulation. I need to do a few experiments on the cured soap to see if I can bring the scent back. Its a beautiful soap even with the discoloration. I do not want to rebatch it!
Last time I soaped I made a few sample sized batches to test a couple new fragrance oils. Generally I spend the extra money and splurge on the really high quality oils that have been tested in cold process soap along with bath and body products. But there were a few that just sounded so yummy last time I was ordering some of my bath bomb fragrance oils. I ordered a few ounces of an oil called frosted cupcake. I wasnt sure if I would like it or not. I am not a big fan of ‘bakery’ smells. I just dont like that undertone many of them contain. I was pleasantly surprised with this oil! No funky undertone at all, it was more like a very light sweet scent, a little like my Laite Sucre. So I did a test batch with it. No color, no additives it is strictly plain soap with this fragrance oil in it. I expected some discoloring because of the vanilla notes Its been a month since I did this test so the discoloration should be at its fullest now and its just a slight beige color. I think it would look fantastic as a vanilla cupcake and make a whipped soap ‘frosting’ on top that isnt scented and that is whitened with some titanium dioxide! Im hoping to soap this soon. I need to get two other batches done first!
This is another of my untested fragrances. I couldn’t get it for ages and it just came available again! So I bought several ounces and decided to test a small batch with this oil. I was thinking it might not behave well, and would probably discolor really badly since it definitely has some fairly strong vanilla notes in it but it isn’t all that dark. I think I should be able to lighten the discoloration affects with titanium dioxide and some high quality soap dye. The fragrance stayed true for the most part. I think it has faded a little, but at this point it shouldn’t fade any further. I just have to be sure to add in some additional fragrance oil at trace and that should take care of the fading issue. Im looking forward to this being a nice pink soap with perhaps a ‘wispy’ top. I was also thinking of doing a tri color swirl- pink, blue and yellow. That could be very fun and cute! I have a number of pink soaps but very few that have blue in it, so Im leaning towards the tri swirl.