Soapy Haul: Essential Oils

Hi, my name is Jenny, and I'm a fragrance/essential oil addict.

I am. I can't help it. It's like, I get around fragrance and essential oils and I just become another person. A weak and powerless person. I don't even know what happens when I get around that stuff. It just takes over. It makes me do strange things with my credit card. And later, after I regain consciousness, I think, My God, what have I done this time?

My friends and family members have seen it. I will get into my stash and sniff and sniff and sniff while my life crumbles around me. The dirty clothes need to be washed and dinner needs to get cooked? Sorry, hon, but I'm busy hanging out with my good buddies Cucumber Melon, Patchouli, and Monkey Farts. Maybe there's a DiGiorno in the freezer, and you do have more than one shirt, don't you?

Me during some very dark times

It started innocently enough. When I first started making soap, I bought two - two! - fragrance oils. And with my next order, I bought more. And more the next time. Each time, more and more and more. Now, they've taken over an entire storage cabinet. Actually, my soapmaking addiction has taken over half of a spare room.

I justify my behavior. I tell myself, Oh, I'm not so bad. I know lots of other people who are in deeper than I am. People who have hundreds, nay, thousands more fragrance oils than I do. And half of a room is nothing - some soapmakers have entire buildings dedicated to their addiction. I've got this under control, and I can quit anytime I want.

And although I already have a bunch of fragrance oils that I really should use up before I buy new ones, I still somehow end up purchasing more. It's like it's never enough, and if one is good, twenty is better.

I don't know how much money I've spent on my soapmaking addiction. I'm afraid to do the math.

And yet, when one of my suppliers recently had a sale on essential oils, I lost control again. I bought ten four-ounce bottles of essential oils from Soap Making Resource. But I had to ... it was a sale! The oils I bought were anywhere from 12%-71% off! I couldn't afford to not buy them.

Although I have lots of fragrance oils, I have few essential oils. And this sale provided me with the perfect excuse opportunity to stock up so I can try some new blends.

So here's what I got:

Patchouli: Earthy and rich, like sweet dirt.

Grapefruit: Know what? I can't stand the taste of grapefruit. It's right up there with cantaloupe. Yuck-o. But I like how it smells. The scent is light and citrusy with a pleasantly bitter bite.

Spearmint: Love-love. Super strong and minty, like Wrigley's Spearmint gum.

Litsea Cubeba: Lemony and sweet, like lemon candy. Good for anchoring citrus scents.

Geranium Rose: Light rose scent.

Lavender Premium: Because the price was so good, I sprung for the Premium instead of the 40/42, which is what I usually use. The Premium is supposed to be more floral and less camphoraceous than the 40/42.

Rosemary: Green, woodsy, and slightly minty with a touch of camphor.

Sweet Basil: Green and herbaceous with a touch of licorice.

Lemongrass: Very lemony with a hint of greenness.

Cedarwood: Smoky and woodsy.

And some FREEBIES!

Sample of Tea Tree essential oil: Tea Tree is interesting. When I sniff just Tea Tree EO, I always think of my grandfather's workshop. He was an avid radio-controlled plane flyer, and I remember his workshop smelling of sawdust and gasoline. That's what Tea Tree smells like to me on its own. It's not a bad smell, but it's also not a pretty smell. When used sparingly in a blend, though, it's wonderful. (Lavender and Tea Tree is a personal favorite!)

Madder Root Powder: A lovely orange-red powder. I hear that it can produce a color anywhere from a light pink to a rich red, depending on how much is used. I haven't played around much with natural colorants, so I'm looking forward to trying this out.

Peppermint Leaves: I think I'll grind these up into a fine powder to add specks of color or to create a pencil line in my minty soaps.

Tussah Silk: I was so hoping that I would get some of this in my grab bag! I have heard so many good things about silk in soap, and I've wanted to try it. My understanding is that you add a pinch of silk to your hot lye solution and allow it to dissolve, infusing your lye. Silk is supposed to give soap more lather and luxurious suds.

What am I going to do with all of this stuff? Well, I have been keeping a notebook with fragrance blend ideas. Here are some I'm considering trying with my new arsenal of essential oils:

~ Cedarwood and patchouli
~ Cedarwood and peppermint
~ Geranium rose and peppermint
~ Grapefruit and patchouli
~ Lavender and grapefruit
~ Lavender and lemongrass
~ Lavender with rosemary, tea tree, patchouli, basil, litsea cubeba, or geranium rose
~ Lemongrass and tea tree
~ Lemongrass with peppermint and/or spearmint
~ Orange 10x with lemongrass or litsea cubeba
~ Patchouli with lemongrass and/or litsea cubeba
~ Spearmint with eucalyptus or peppermint
~ Blend of lavender and cedarwood with a bit of patchouli
~ Blend of lemongrass, basil, and rosemary

What do you think of my blend ideas? What are some of your favorite fragrance blends?

Orange Patchouli Soap

I love patchouli. It smells musky, earthy, and dirty, like rich soil. Not everyone loves it. Some folks hate it. I remember burning patchouli incense when I was in high school and my mom complaining that I was "making the house smell like dead things."

Lovely, sweet, amazing-smelling dead things.

One day, when the price of patchouli essential oil comes down a bit (and by a bit I mean a lot), I will make a batch of soap scented with patchouli straight-up. Fortunately, a little patchouli goes a long way, and it's great in blends. And I have found that people who hate patchouli - like my mom, for example - like it in a blend.

I bought a bar of Orange Patchouli soap at a farmer's market a couple of years ago and loved it. A couple of weeks ago, I was browsing through my fragrance cabinet and squealed with delight when I found that I had full bottles of both orange and patchouli essential oils. So I made a batch of Orange Patchouli cold-process soap.

For this batch, I used Bramble Berry's 10x Orange and Patchouli essential oils at a 3:1 ratio. I love the 10-fold Orange essential oil because it sticks well in cold-process soap. Citrus essential oils are notoriously fleeting and often fade to almost nothing in soap. The 10-fold Orange is a concentrated essential oil, so it tends to be stronger and better survives the saponification process. This batch of soap smells mostly of orange with a bit of musky earthiness in the background.

Patchouli blends so well with so many other scents. I've tried lavender and patchouli together, too, and that is a wonderful combination. There are so many combos that I think would be fantastic - patchouli and lemongrass, grapefruit, geranium, peppermint, rosemary, sandalwood, or cedarwood ... the list goes on. Experimentation is a huge part of the fun in soapmaking!

How do you feel about patchouli? Love it, hate it? Do you like it by itself, or prefer it in a blend? What are some of your favorite patchouli blends?

Until next time ...