As most of you know, I use essential oils to scent my soaps rather than fragrance oils. This is mostly a personal preference on my part: I like the way they smell, the available variety, and how creative I can be in mixing them. It also jibes with my philosophy of making things that are in tune with my love of beekeeping. I like working with nature... but I also recognize its limitations. After all, soap is made through a chemical reaction--not exactly natural, by most definitions, but also not something most of us would want to be without! Using essential oils does mean limiting my scents somewhat. There is no apple essential oil, or strawberry essential oil, for instance, and some scents, like vanilla, dont last well in soaps. Other scents, like rose or jasmine are so extraordinarily expensive that I cant justify using them, or can only them them as very minor ingredients in a larger formula. However, I can sometimes find a good substitute, like peru balsam or benzoin for vanilla, or rose geranium for rose. I came across this article today, an interview with chemist Kevin Dunn on how essential oils are affected by the process of soap making. After years of making soaps, I know that the scent of many oils definitely changes during the process, so it was good to read an explanation of why that change occurs. Happy reading! roberttisserand/2011/06/essential-oils-in-soap-interview-with-kevin-dunn/
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 16:01:32 +0000
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