Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Vanilla in Fragrance Oils

Back when I was a newbie soapmaker, I made a batch of Nag Champa cold process soap. I added titanium oxide to make it nice and white. My soap smelled marvelous, but I was horrified when it turned dark. I thought I had done something wrong. I didn't know at that time that if a fragrance oil has vanilla in it, the soap that it's in will eventually turn brown.

Soap turning brown isn't necessarily a bad thing. With a little preplanning, you can turn soap turning brown into a design advantage. I can make my soap two tone just by adding a fragrance containing vanilla to part of a batch to turn it dark, and omit the fragrance (or add fragrance that doesn't have vanilla in it) from the rest of the batch to color or leave natural.

The following pictures show a slice of soap right after cutting where I used the fragrance oil containing vanilla in only of the batch and colored the rest. the second photo shows the same slice of soap after sitting for 1 week. Big difference, isn't it? And kind of a neat look.



But, you might wonder, how do I know whether my fragrance oil has vanilla as an ingredient? Some vendors, such as Wholesale Supplies Plus, will actually indicate in their overview for a particular fragrance, whether there is vanilla in it and what percentage. Often, a vendor will mention in the description if the soap will turn brown. Or you can contact your fragrance vendor, most are happy to tell you whether or not your fragrance oil has vanilla in it.

In closing, if you don't want your soap to turn brown, do your homework and find out before you make your batch to avoid an unpleasant surprise.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Bringing the world together through music...

My musician boyfriend Ron turned me onto a cool website called Playing For Change. A group of musicians worldwide came up with the idea to have one person start a song, then pass it on to to other musicians around the world to build on it. The final results were astounding to say the least. Check it out!

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Could it be...Internet soap?

I've been a soapmaking maniac for the last 2 years, and pretty darned soon, since my handmade soap has been selling so well locally, I will soon be launching my new website for my Little Hippie Girl Soap Company. Here's a stack of my soap...