Aromatics for home made soap

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Aromatics for home made soap
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tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45669
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 05 9:41 am Post subject: Aromatics for home made soap
With all the recent talk of home made soap I wondered iif anybody ahd any good "recipes" for home grown aromatics to make your soap smell sweetly?

sally_in_wales
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Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 05 3:33 pm Post subject:

Oodles! All depends on whether you want to add the aromatics whilst making the soap, in which case they need to be quite 'tough' as the chemical reaction continues for a couple of weeks after the soap is made, or if you want to start with a bland soap and rebatch it by grating it, mixing in herbs etc and moistening it before squidging it bck together. this works really well if you want subtle scents in your soap as things like dried herbs will successfully scent a rebatch where you might not smell them at all in a soap where you added them really early. What did you have in mind- any favourite smells? I'll see if I can suggest some ways of getting them into your soap successfully.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45669
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 05 3:56 pm Post subject:
Not favourite smells as such, just stuff that you could grow at home and use succesfully in home made soap.

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 05 4:28 pm Post subject:

I'd appreciate some guidance here as well. Mind you, I'm probably getting ahead of myself since I haven't actually made any soap yet!
I'd like to use lemon balm and rosemary (not in the same soap) and as I have a long hedge of rugosa roses, it would be nice to incorporate their scent as well. No idea if this is possible without having to distill the petals or something dreadfully complicated like that.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45669
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 05 4:29 pm Post subject:

Judith wrote:

Mind you, I'm probably getting ahead of myself since I haven't actually made any soap yet!

Sshh! (me neither

)

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 05 4:31 pm Post subject:
I've got most of the ingredients. Does that count?

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45669
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 05 4:32 pm Post subject:
I haven't even got that far yet

alison
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Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 05 8:12 pm Post subject:
What are good combinations for soap. Would it be better to buy essential oils to scent them or just use aromatic plants from the garden.

sally_in_wales
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Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 05 5:50 am Post subject:

For the new soapmakers amongst you, my advice would be to make your first batch a totally plain, all purpose soap. I have a soft spot for all olive Castile, but thats just me, a mixed oil batch would work just as well. Concentrate on making that first batch really well, because that will give you lots of info on how a batch of soap 'should' look when you start making more complicated recipes later. Once your soap has set, you can put some away for laundyr or household soap, then add scents to teh rest by grating it, mixing in home grown aromatics, and dampening teh mix before forming it to balls or pressing it into a mould (eg a plastic tub) to make bars. This lets you do several things, you can make more than one 'smell' at a time, you can experiemnt with fresh or dried herbs and spices, and you can have fun with soap playdough

The single thing to bear in mind throughout all of this is that almost all herbs will trun brown or black in soap due to the alkali conditions. This is no problem, just you need to know its goingto happen.
If you have essential oils to hand they are the most reliable way to get scent into soap, you usually use about 5-10 ml per batch, so you use quite a lot, and of course some are better for you in soap than others, but thats another story.

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 05 7:40 am Post subject:
Where do you tend to get your oils/herbs from, Sally? I imagine you must get through buckets with the quantities you make!

boff

Joined: 23 Mar 2005
Posts: 354
Location: Still alive and kicking

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 05 8:35 am Post subject:
Morning All, I'd like to try making soap with cinnamon. Never done this before any pointers.

sally_in_wales
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Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 05 9:00 am Post subject:

Cinnamon is a known skin sensitizer so you have to be very careful not to put too much in. A sprinkling of ground cinnamon works very well in soap, but err on the side of acution. likewise with cinnamon oil, it can be used, but you ned to use very small amounts. If you want to get technical there is a website run by IFRA (the International Fragrance something or other) that spells out teh safe and legal levels for ingredients that are known to cause sensitivity in some people

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45669
Location: Essex

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 05 9:37 am Post subject:
Getting back to the original question do the herbs have to be processed in any way before adding to the soap?

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 05 9:46 am Post subject:

sally_in_wales wrote:

Sensible advice. Do you have a simple basic recipe you could point us to?

sally_in_wales
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Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 05 11:27 am Post subject:
Let me get myself home from work and I'll post a 'how to' for beginners later this afternoon.

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