Teach Soap

Does anyone know a 'go to' source, a good book, on essential oil in soap making? Has anyone heard of Kevin Dunn and his book Scientific Soapmaking: The Chemistry of the Cold Process? I'm not sure this is the book for what is troubling me. SOME of my essential oil scents fade and I need to know why. I"m told by a local soap company here that "Eventually, all EO's will evaporate and as you probably already know when you combine some EO's they become less fragrant, so some combinations require more EO's when mixed than when used by themselves." So this is the first time I've heard that some combinations themselves have holding issues?

This soap company also said "I will say that in our formulations, we use A LOT... Ounces of EO's per batch. Our essential oil costs are 1 to 2 times the cost of our oils per batch. That should tell you something about the quantities we use.
Note of caution that EO's can be unsafe at high concentrations so you really need to pay attention to the material safety limits on each type."
My first real account with a retailer said that my soap scent has disappeared and would I replace them? The soap was made 9 months ago. I don't know if this is a standard request but I said yes I would replace the soap because I want the client to be happy, on the other hand, I know that EO's, all of them, have a shelf life. I'm not sure it was the right move to say I would replace the soap but I'm new to this and want the retailer to be happy. In any case, I have to find other ways to learn about this as I can't afford to be going to the soapers guild conferences just yet. A good book would help.

All essential oils need to be used at a safe %. Some, like orange will always fade. I have the Kevin Dunn book of Scientific Soapmaking. It is an excellent book for soapmaking, but he doesn't go into essential oils.
You just can't use "a lot". Using too much essential oil in soap can make the soap irritating. Just because their essential oil costs are 1 to 2 times the cost of the oils per batch that's pretty useless. You can find reasonably priced essential oils that are good quality and work in soap.
If a soap sat on a shelf for 9 months, that might not be the right market for your soap.
I sell wholesale and they sell much much sooner then 9 months.
I posted a sticky on essential oils. You might find it helpful. viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12046

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Hi Irena, thank you for the link. I'm familiar with this article but it still does not exactly help me understand how much I can use safely and effectively. I guess I will just have to experiment as all good soapers do. In any case, of course I only want to do this at safe levels. I found the sage scent calculator. https://www.thesage.com/calcs/FragCalc.html
In your opinion is this a good guideline in terms of safe usage? It seems very helpful for both safety and a rough idea of how strong you want a scent to be. It's only a calculator of course and what it is unable to do is calculate BLENDING predictions. You can only put one EO in at a time to roughly understand that particular EO and its properties. I guess that's where the informed experiments come in based on articles like yours and the calculator. In defense of the quote from the local soaper I copied here, I think this soaper was hinting without trying to say too much about their formulas. I'm sure there is more to it that they are not revealing and it was nice that they even tried to answer a question from a newbie like me. That company actually does quite well and makes a nice product. But that's why I'm so grateful to this forum! It's really great to be able to post problems and get responses from this community. Thank you!

Each essential oil is different and so is the usage. In soap, for example, orange oil fades. BrambleBerry also has a fragrance calculator, but I wish they didn't list teaspoons as they are simply not accurate. Robert Tisserand has a book called Essential Oil Safety, but the book doesn't go into detail as far as blends or usage in bath and body products.
Some vendors do give safe usage rate.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

But what about the Sage calculator? They do it by weight. I don't like the Brambleberry calc.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Yes I see what you are saying. One just has to be smart about it and experiment before marketing. Making soap is the easy part, what distinguishes you from others is your ability to blend oils, in and among those that prefer to make their soaps with scent.