Teach Soap

Hi Folks:

Perhaps I should post this on the Fragrance Forum, but I wanted to ask everyone's opinions on the FOs that you have especially good luck with regards to them not accelerating? I am looking for suggestions for FOs will that give me a lot of time to do a variety of swirling.

I know that Black Raspberry Vanilla does very well.

Many thanks for your help.

BubbleBath

General rule of thumb is that FOs with spice notes (clove, cinnamon) are prone to seizing and floral FOs are prone to seizing and ricing. It's a good guideline, but it's not perfect. For example, the two Apple Jack & Peel fos I have used (Tony's and BB's) have both been well behaved, yet Apple Pie caused some acceleration, and Mulled Apple Cider (from Sweetcakes) I have to hot process. From what I have observed, Gardenia and Rose are the worst behaved of the florals.

Your best bet is to read the reviews for the individual FOs, or maybe even post some FOs you are interested in. There are just TOO MANY to give you a complete list. Green and fruit FOs tend to be well behaved.

Keep in mind - I use lard and I use full water, so FOs that behave for me might not work as well for a palm soaper or a water discounter:

BB FOs that behave off the top of my head:
BRV
Energy (I don't like this FO, but many people do)
Honey Beeswax (LOOOVE this)
Kentish Rain
Leather
OMH Cybilla
Pinot Grigio
Pumpkin Lager (yum yum yum)
Vanilla Oak (meh. Awesome OOB, loses something when soaped)
White Tea and Ginger (lovely)
Woodland Elves (nice and piney without smelling like Pinesol)

Great reminder about using lard (or tallow) and full water instead of palm. If I use a rose or other known fussy floral, I go straight to tallow and use full water. That usually buys quite a bit of time. Avoid palm kernel like the plague with those FOs. Same with Rain FO. Yikes! That seized on me and the only reason I got it into the mold was that I did a simple layered design added the FO right before pouring each layer. By the time I got to the next layer, the first one was hard as a rock. Just incredible. Leather riced badly for me using my standard palm recipe, but it was perfectly respectable with tallow and higher olive.

It's late, and off the top of my head I can tell you that Champagne is wonderful to soap with. It's water white, and not a hint of acceleration, ricing or discoloration. And it smells awesome too! Most straight essential oils are very easy to work with too, but they're more expensive and some like lavender don't always stick well in cold process.

_________________
Jennifer
Doing my best to blow up my kitchen. In style!

You should check out the soap scent review board, you have to join first though. Here's the link: http://soapscentreview.obisoap.ca/

You need a paid/subscription email account, I just figured out how to use my Time Warner one, I have TW for cable but really only use my gmail acct for emails, so it was good to get some value out of it! The SSRB is pretty much completely about reviewing FO's/EO's, mostly in use in CP, reviews focus on A/D/ricing/holding as well as scent. I always check to see if there are reviews there before I buy a new FO at this point.