Teach Soap

Soaped with NG's Absinthe today. I chose this due to my love of spicy, woody scents, so the description and rave reviews got me: "...star anise, fennel, spicy cinnamon cassia, nutmeg, melissa, fresh green herbal notes, with base notes of amber and woods." (NG website).

Strong star anise and cinnamon OOB and now that batter is in the mold. The other notes don't come out now; maybe it needs to cure and mellow. DEFINITE accelerator - glad I prepped for this. I took care to soap at my lowest temps so far, even mixing up lye first and letting that cool down to about 110 F; oils at 110 F - SB at a perfect 110 F. I had added some baker's chocolate to my oils as I am sold on this to get a nice brown.
I had "brownie batter" in short order. In retrospect - - I should have mixed this with a wire whisk. But I did try a pencil line in turmeric - I have a ton of this spice that is getting rather old. But it was a definite "blob it into the mold" type of experience.

I can totally imagine this scent in a holiday line up as something a little different than the usual. The 1 oz comes out to 3% usage in my recipe - OK at that rate but could increase it a touch more.

Thanks for that feedback, AprilPrey - I was actually just looking at that FO today! My honey is an enormous absinthe guy, and I have wanted to make him some absinthe soap for a while (but that won't make him smell like he just left the bar!)

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Chrissy

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I have never smelled nor tasted real absinthe, so not sure how close of a match it is to the real thing. But its definitely spicy in a unisex way - I think both men and women would like it. I would be curious to know if he thinks its a good imitation of the real thing.

I may have to order it to check it out, then! I'll let you know what we think of it...

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Chrissy

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I think something is wrong with my sniffer because all I smell when I smell NG's Absinthe is black licorice with a hint of vanilla.
I'm going to go have my daughter smell it....

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Genny

Isn't weird how different our senses are? My nose can not pick up the cinnamon in it at all.
I had my 10 yr old daughter smell it & she picked up vanilla, cinnamon and clove, but no anise or licorice smell.
I then later had my husband smell it and he said chocolate Keep in mind that he doesn't like chocolate, has never eaten black licorice and wouldn't know anise if it bit him in the keester.

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Genny

It's so interesting how different people recognize smells! My honey also loooves gin (jeez, I hope I'm not making him sound like an alcoholic), and we recently purchased a gin aroma kit that helps us identify the different botanicals most common in gins. It's been super interesting - when we know what we're smelling in advance, we think that's course, that's clearly cardamom (or whatever), but when we try to guess each scent, we come up with some wild guesses! The kit has a guide that teaches us how to recognize scents, and I'm super excited to put this into practice with my soap hobby!

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Chrissy

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I ordered the FO, just to try it out - I like it - it's warm and spicy and kind of comforting. It doesn't smell terribly like absinthe to my nose, though - I may try to blend it with some anise EO or something to pull out some more absinthe-y notes. I can't wait to soap with this!

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Chrissy

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AprilPrey - how did your Absinthe soaps turn out? I haven't gotten around to using my FO yet, but I was thinking about playing with it today. Just curious...

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Chrissy

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