# fragrance oils and cold vs. hot processing ???



## Merry Beth (Jul 25, 2008)

I too have been lurking here and dreaming of making soap for a year. I too have read the books and been scared to try because of them. However, I finally took the plunge and invested a fair amount of money on oils and lye. My daughter and I will probably try to make soap soon. So, I have a couple questions.

1. Apparently there are a lot of fragrance oil problems, so how do you know which ones to chose so you don't get ripped off? They are very expensive. Where do you buy them?

2. We have read about cold and hot processing and only read negative things about hot processing on here, so what is the general consensus? 

We do have one of Susan Cavitch's books (she was recommended on a different topic) and this forum to work from btw. 

I read a book from the library about milk soap and she said you have to pastuerize and that it is the hardest soap there is to make...is that true? I have tons of frozen milk in my freezer from last fall, could I use it. It is raw.

Thanks a bunch guys--you are so great to help us newbies!

Meredith


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

You do not need to pasteurize milk before making soap. Anything that the pasteurization would kill, the lye will take care of. (Now, if you were going to make lotion, then you absolutely need to pasteurize. At least twice.) As to whether it is hard to make, well, I don't think it's that bad. (And I'm a relative newbie, compared to many people on this board.) Maybe it's a little harder to use milk than water, because you can't burn water, but apart from taking precautions to not burn the milk (using milk that is still frozen when you add the lye, mixing the lye with the milk when the container that you do that in is in an ice water bath in your sink to keep things cooler, for example) the procedure is not going to be that much different. Now, the milk will cause differences in how the color of the soap turns out (whether you use added colorants or not) but that doesn't affect the functioning of the soap.

There is a list of suppliers in the stickies at the top of the board for things, including fragrances. Many of them have reviews of the fragrances on their websites where people will say how they thought they worked, so you can know before you buy, at least a little. There are also fragrance reviews on this board, in the stickies, as well. 

You're right that this board leans heavily CP. Apart from a rebatch where I used my crockpot, everything that I've done, soap-wise, has been CP. It's really pretty easy, especially once you have done it a few times and have some sort of system set up. (Like premeasuring things you plan to add at trace or whatever, so that you are not trying to juggle too many things at once and your soap becomes soap too quickly and you don't get to add that fragrance or swirl, or whatever you were trying to do.) Try the Walmart recipe in the recipe sticky...very detailed instructions and the recipe itself is not hard. Read it through a few times before you do anything so that you have the process in your head, and then give it a shot (with the instructions right there, of course...don't go from memory!) I think you will be pleasantly surprised!


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## mill-valley (Feb 22, 2008)

I have gotten fragrances from Brambleberry and CandleScience and been really happy with both. I have only done CP so can't comment on that. But if you can cook, you can make soap. It really is no harder than making a casserole for supper. Or as Barb said in another post...if you can make soup, you can make soap! I don't think milk soap is any harder than water soap...just a little more fiddling with it. It's worth it though...I can definately tell the difference between soap with milk and soap with water.


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## Madfarmer (Nov 18, 2008)

If you saw ME klutzing around the kitchen, all your fears would be put to rest. And I make soap. People have bought it & loved it, no none's died or been maimed. Just be aware there's a TON of bad, useless info on the web & in some of the books. I ignored Barb's advice & used some milk in my very first batch. No big deal. I mix my lye 50:50 with water, blend it in with my oils, when it's a smooth emulsion, I dump in fresh, raw milk, my fragrance oil, blend it well, & dump it in the mold. I've only used Fragrance Oils from Aroma Haven. They have notes on each one to let you know of any problems with acceleration & such, and their prices are pretty good compared to some.Definitely do cold-process to start.

Tom


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Except for personal use or high end products, nobody is using expensive oils and butters in thier soaps. I teach the walmart recipe and do the first batch with water, I will not even teach the frozen milk recipe unless specifically asked, adding your lye to water and then at emulsion adding milk simply gives you whiter bars that you can color true...and some customers don't want tan soap. Once you have a couple batches of easy Walmart soap under your belt then using a lye calculator start subbing things out, either to get to a non animal butter product (which is ashame since they make the best soap) or to add some of the expensive oils you purchased for soaping.

Don't buy any scent until you know it works for someone else, even critiques given on websites can sometimes be meaningless. Unless someone has speicifically used the scent be careful purchasing from sites aimed at candle makers, always make sure the scent is body use safe. Vicki


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## Merry Beth (Jul 25, 2008)

We are going to buy the w-m recipe ingredients and try to make it when our lye comes in. we can't get lye around here anywhere we have looked. I'm sure I'll have more questions, I'm kind of a visual learner and I don't have anyone to teach me. Thanks for all the help and advice. I'll be back with more questions!


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

My first soaps were all crockpot soaps and then Vicki convenced me to do CP my how much nicer the bars look and I still use the Walmart recipe just subbing out some of the oils and butters using the lye calc. You won't find sunflower oil anymore at Wally World so use safflower. Krogers has sunflower.
LueAnn makes the coconut oil and WW has it


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

I use canola in place of the sunflower or safflower oil. It is much cheaper and I've made some great soap with it. I use small amounts of castor, and shea to "enrich" my recipe, but I try to keep the oils I use for my 6 ounce bars at less than $1 per bar (for oils), actually I think I'm spending about 61 cents, and that includes shipping on the coconut. I don't order fragrance oils anymore unless I can fill up a box to save on shipping. 

I've learned a couple things on my own that I can share. First, if you are going to do a milk recipe (which is all I do), use frozen cubes of milk, not big chunks. If you have big chunks frozen, you can unfreeze and then refreeze in ice cube trays. Make sure when you measure the milk cubes into your pot that you add the lye immediately after. No, there is no point in adding it slowly as the cubes are frozen and it makes no difference. Be sure to wear latex gloves and goggles at this point in soaping....I always put mine on just before I start measuring lye. You DO NOT want lye in your eyes! 

Once the lye is measured onto your milk cubes, using a rubber spatula, gently begin stirring together. Do not let the milk cubes set and melt at all before you add the lye. You will end up with yellow, burnt milk. At this point I turn all my attention onto the glass container of lye and milk cubes, stirring gently, but constantly, scraping the sides and bottom to make sure there are no lye crystals sitting around clumping together. You might want to put your bowl of lye/milk into a little larger container with ice underneath to give you a little more time to work, and the lye a few more minutes to dissolve before you have to pour. 

Once you are no longer hearing crystals crunching on the bottom of the bowl, even while you still have a few cubes of frozen milk left, you can then go ahead and carefully pour the milk/lye into your waiting melted oils, if you wait too long you will have yellow milk. Use the spatula to scrape it all out, but if you see yellow chunks of burned lye, you worked a little too slow, and you don't want to add these to the oils. I keep a strainer handy for straining the last little bit, but since I've figured out what causes the chunks, I rarely have them anymore.

Once the lye/milk is in the oils, mix immediately. If allowed to sit on the bottom of the pot, the mixture will begin to burn. Once it is mixed into the oils the burning will not occur. This is not a smoking type of burning, just a scalding of the milk and it stinks. 

I think making milk soaps is easy, easy, easy. I'm actually afraid to make water soaps as I did it twice and I didn't like how hot my water got, I had to wait for it to cool, etc. I only know one way to do everything and I've been practicing this for over a year and I am very happy with the way my soaps turn out. If not colored or herbs added, the soaps are an off white, not tan. Most fragrance oils tend to lend their own colors, and I'll leave it alone if I like it, but I use things like spirulina for green color, cinnamon, nutmeg in and on my black raspberry vanilla, ground chamomile or calendula with my lavender, etc. I try to make each soap look different so I don't get them mixed up. Makes them more interesting too. 

HAVE FUN! You'll be hooked on soaping before long. 
Anita


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## Merry Beth (Jul 25, 2008)

We got the stuff from w-m and subbed the sunflower with olive, I guess that's okay. I realized it is more expensive but i also realize there are properties in it (hopefully) that will benefit our skin. We didn't buy much of the "fancy" products, just enough to try them, so with what you guys are saying, I'm glad we didn't and we can also just add this or that to enrich and spoil ourselves.

I was hesitant to use the lard because the one time I bought "homemade" soap with lard when I knew it, it smelled like bacon and peppermint and I didn't like the soap at all. (We got that at silver dollar city.)

I was going to use some peppermint EO since I can get some easily, but I have no idea how much to use, can anyone tell me? 

And for those of you who use your herbs, when you use the herbs do you still use the oil or just let the herbs do their thing? 

With the descenting soap that uses coffee, I read online that to make it you just sub double strength coffee for your water. Any tips on this? I know someone makes this...Tammy?


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## mill-valley (Feb 22, 2008)

I've made coffee soap...just subbed strong coffee for water and put some coffee grounds in it.

I like peppermint EO at about .5 ppo but everyone's tastes are different...I like it strong.


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## Merry Beth (Jul 25, 2008)

Well, the coffee soap is appealing since I'm always cooking and having onion or garlic on my hands. Not too mention the nice buck scent I get if I want to love on our sweet little nigi buck. He's a doll.  Plus, my men are hunters and fishermen who could use a little descenting for this reason or that. hehe. That sounds easy enough to do. When do you add the coffee grounds? At emulsion or trace?


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## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

I make coffee soap with triple strength coffee and then add 1 tablespoon of fresh grounds ppo at trace. I use the coffee as the liquid with my lye. Be prepared as it STINKS! The first time I made it I thought no way am I ruining my oils and dumped it. But that's just how it is and it will not stink once it's made. LOL I don't scent mine and it sells very well for me. I looks like a piece of granite when cut.


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Merry Beth, just make sure that when you make substitutions in the recipe, that you run it through a lye calculator with the new version of the recipe. (Safflower for sunflower doesn't change the lye calculations, I've found, but other oils or butters might.)

As for peppermint, just be aware that it if you are using it for other than hand soap, it can be somewhat uncomfortable for certain body parts, and I wouldn't want to use it around the eyes, for sure.


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## Merry Beth (Jul 25, 2008)

Thanks for the tips guys. I was looking at pricing yesterday and the coconut oil is almost as much as the olive at walmart now. (not really but it is high!) Does anyone have a source for it cheaper than $2.60 a pound? It's about that at AAAchemicals too. 

For some reason my filter is blocking the scent reviews page. That's weird. I will have to check that stuff out on someone else's computer.


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## mill-valley (Feb 22, 2008)

I just ordered some from Colombus Foods...it's definately cheaper than walmart. Something like $12 for 7 lbs I think? It's about a gallon-size container....but then you'd have to add shipping so you probably wouldn't save much if just ordering one thing.


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## Merry Beth (Jul 25, 2008)

cool, thanks. I'll look at that.


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