Teach Soap

Hey all, being still a newbie to the whole soapmaking thing, and only somewhat less with essential oils in general, I was wondering if anyone here has had surprising, and/or disappointing, results when blending various essential oils together, as I have been having.

For example, I have been wanting to make a conifer needle (spruce/hemlock/fir) soap, and thought it might be nice to add in some cedarwood EOs. (Every book or reference I have read has mentioned "Conifer needle oils: blend well with cedarwood". "Cedarwood oils: blend well with conifer oils".) So, I have been making some small test batches mixing a conifer needle EO blend (black spruce/hemlock/balsam fir) with a blend of Atlas and Virginia Cedarwood EOs. However, upon combining the two different kinds of oils, the results are NOT what I was hoping for, or expecting, at all --- the combination does NOT smell like conifer needle + cedarwood, but has a strange, fruity, citrus-like, mutated Frankincense-like aroma, nothing like either of its two constituents. Does anyone know what might be going on here?

I have had similar problems in trying to make up an essential oil blend for myself for wearing as a substitute for cologne --- it seems that almost no matter WHAT I mix, or in what combinations, I keep coming up with almost the SAME kind of weird, fruity, quasi-Frankincense-like aroma in those trial batches as well. I am wondering if I am going crazy here --- how can so many different blends end up smelling almost exactly the same --- and not in a good way?

I should add that all, or almost all, of the EO combinations that I have tinkered with have involved either cedarwood, sandalwood (very expensive to experiment with!), or both.

Is there some rule about NOT combining wood EOs with others that I might have missed? I have never read anything, in all my extensive reading on essential oils, that would lead me to believe or expect that some oils react badly with others, or change the aromatic character of each other, but that is what I am finding the more I experiment with blending them. What could I be doing wrong?

I am at my wits end here! Thanks all.

Hemloc is toxic. I would not use it in any application. If you search for Rainbow Meadow fragrance calculator online and plug in some of your essential oils, it should have some blends that you can use.

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

I don't add cedarwood to my tree of trees blend. I find it adds a musty note to it which I don't care for. Spruce, pine, juniper and some ylang, a hint of vanilla or patch is what I've used in the past for a tree blend.

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

Oakmoss is VERY strong and can overtake a blend. Depending what you are using to make a blend, I would dip a toothpick into your oakmoss, then add that tiny bit and see if you like it. I normally use q-tips for blending which I put into a small ziploc bag and leave it there to blend for a couple of days.

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

Hmm, I've actually been playing with conifer (including cedar) oils lately... can't say I've run into any fruity-like smells, but I did add a bit of serrata frankincense to some balsam fir and Virginia cedar to get the aroma I wanted! I'm not sure what may be going on, though -- if you are running into that same smell in a lot of your blends, it may be your specific cedarwood oil. Have you tried a different source?

Couple other questions -- how long are you letting blends sit before you give 'em a test sniff? And are you sniffing several things in sequence? A trick people use when testing scents is to have a small dish of coffee beans or grounds on hand, and to sniff that in between perfumes (or whatever) to clear the nose. If you sniff things that are really similar one after the other, your olfactory sense will often "subtract" the sameness from them, leaving an unbalanced impression. Like... if I sniff citrus + basil and immediately sniff citrus + balsam, I'll just be left with an impression of balsam for the latter. Just a side note for testing

Oakmoss... I do love the scent of it, but yeah, a little goes a very long way. XD I can see it going all right with cedar. I'm having a harder time imagining it with the brighter conifers, but maybe as a very light touch, a sort of "hmm, what IS that?" note (in a good way!).

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CP newbie who's turning into a soaping addict!

Essential oils do change according the the skin's pH and body chemistry. That's why it smells different on your skin as opposed to a piece of paper. Also the skin is warm, so some of the top notes in your blend will evaporate faster.

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

Oh, yeah... as soapbuddy said, a person's body can radically alter how a scent dries down -- even FOs can act differently in that context. Some notes burn off faster, some linger way too long or get "amplified". You can even experience different scent reactions on your own body based on your hormones, diet, stress levels, etc. on any given day. For soap purposes, I'd definitely test on paper or something I actually like those perfume test strip/blotters -- they're quite sturdy and I can write on them -- but any paper would probably do

(There is nothing quite like the disappointment of smelling some awesome perfume oil in a bottle, putting it on, and finding out it smells really quite unpleasant on *you*. ;( I hope if you're still aiming for personal scents in addition to soap, you can work something out XD; )

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CP newbie who's turning into a soaping addict!

If you drink coffee and use the coffee filters, cut one up and use it as your scent strips.

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

I've gotten a nice scent from mixing cedarwood and clary sage. It's a dark, woodsy, "masculine" scent.

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
Like us: http://www.facebook.com/AvitalsApiaries

One of my favorite masculine blends is one part sweet orange and one part cedarwood. I use this with French green clay as an additive and this helps the scent to last in the soap.

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

Thanks soapbuddy, I will. What proportions do you suggest?