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Hi Roxana,
I have several queries. Can you please advise:
1. Putting essential oil in the soap. How long will the scent of the essential oil last? Will be it 2 years as the shelf life of the soap, or shorter, or diminishing over the time?
2. When I check on the soap calculator, I can see that not many oil has cleansing properties. Only oil like coconut oil and a few others. Most of them have no cleansing properties. Does it mean when we make the soap, one of the ingredient should be at least a dose of cleansing property oil?
3. Infused oil. Can we use in replacement of non-infused oil, eg pure olive oil or others? What effect will it do to the soap with such infused oil?
4. I saw some natural soap products in the market, a well-known brand. One of the ingredients is glycerin. When we make natural soap, the NaOH and oil reaction will produce glycerin. Why do this natural soap products still add glycerin in it?
Thank you for your response. Much appreciated.
Regards,
Feny
4.
Hi Feny,
I have answered your questions below.
1. Putting essential oil in the soap. How long will the scent of the essential oil last? Will be it 2 years as the shelf life of the soap, or shorter, or diminishing over the time?
The smell of essential oils will fade with time, some of them will not even survive the 6 weeks curing process like lemon essential oil. If you want to retain the essential oil for longer you can mix it with a bit of clay (10 grams) to anchor it. Also, after the soap is cured you can wrap it in paper or keep it in a closed cardboard box to help retain the scent.
2. When I check on the soap calculator, I can see that not many oil has cleansing properties. Only oil like coconut oil and a few others. Most of them have no cleansing properties. Does it mean when we make the soap, one of the ingredient should be at least a dose of cleansing property oil?
That’s correct. I have added some information about this in the course. If you want to make a well balanced soap you should add a % of coconut oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil, lard or tallow. That doesn’t mean soaps made only of liquid oils, like for example Castile soap made from 100% olive oil, are not cleansing. They are just less cleansing and much milder.
3. Infused oil. Can we use in replacement of non-infused oil, eg pure olive oil or others? What effect will it do to the soap with such infused oil?
If you infuse oils, when calculating the formula you need to use the oil you have added as base for infusion. For example if you infuse camomile in olive oil, then when calculating the formula you need to add olive oil to the calculator. Some soap makers infuse plants in oils to give the properties of the plants to the soap. However, this is not easy to prove and if you want to make claims as to their properties you need to have scientific studies and tests, depending on the local regulations.
4. I saw some natural soap products in the market, a well-known brand. One of the ingredients is glycerin. When we make natural soap, the NaOH and oil reaction will produce glycerin. Why do this natural soap products still add glycerin in it?
Glycerin is one of the ingredients of natural soap, just like you said, created during the saponification, that is probably why they mention it. It is also possible to add glycerin to the soap, but as glycerin is already in the soap it’s not needed.