Tag: fragrances

Initially, I thought this fragrance smelled like a “sexy man,” and for once, I didn’t change my mind. It still smelled like a sexy man out of the bottle and in the soap. I liked this one. As you can see, it’s a little yellow out of the bottle.

As I did with the other seven fragrances, I used a recipe of 45% olive oil, 25% coconut oil, 25% sustainable palm oil, and 5% castor oil in this recipe. I soaped with full water (38%) and a 6% lye discount. The oils and lye water were 95 degrees when I combined them. I blended to a light trace. This picture is a little dark.

After I added the fragrance, I stirred a bit with the spatula, but I saw no signs of ricing. I stick blended a bit. No acceleration or immediate discoloration, as you can see in this picture I took after the fragrance was blended.

I actually blended it a bit past light trace—maybe to a medium trace. Then I poured it into the mold and drew curly designs on the top.

I unmolded and cut the soap the next day. As you may be able to see from the photo, this fragrance does discolor slightly. There is a faint brownish frame around the edges of the soap. I expect the rest of the soap to turn the same shade. It is not the deep brown you get from fragrances with a lot of vanillin, but I am wondering if this fragrance has a little bit of vanillin in it, which might explain both the discoloration and the pattern of discoloration—in my experience, fragrances with vanillin take some time to completely change the color of the soap, and what you often have is this “frame.”

This one smells great. After saponification, the fragrance is still strong, and I’m detecting a fruity note (maybe apple). I would totally buy this one. Two thumbs up!

In an upcoming post, I will recap my reviews, ranking the fragrance in order of my own preference along with any recommendations I can think of. In a few weeks’ time, I will update everyone on how these soaps performed after a good cure.

Thanks again to Bramble Berry for the opportunity to be on the S.O.A.P. Panel. It was a lot of fun!

My nose was so wrong on this one. Initially, I said this was citrusy with a floral note and smelled summery. Yeesh. I am detecting a vague fruity smell, but I can’t pinpoint what it is. Behind that is a sort of masculine, woodsy scent. It smells like it might be a dupe of some cologne, but I can’t be sure which one, since I am terrible about keeping up with that sort of thing. If you’d have asked me in the 1980’s, I would have known, but I had a cologne-obsessed boyfriend at the time, so I didn’t have to work at it. My husband says it smells like a melon soaked in industrial cleaning fluid. After he made that comment, I sniffed again, and I can smell some sort of melon in there. I initially thought I liked this one, but the more I smelled it, the less I liked it, and by the time I was done soaping with it, I really disliked it.

As before, I used a recipe with full water, 45% olive oil, 25% coconut oil, 25% sustainable palm oil, and 5% castor oil. I soaped with oils that were about 93 degrees and a lye solution that was about 96 degrees. I used the full bottle of fragrance, which was 25 grams.

I stick blended to a light trace, and then I added the fragrance.

The fragrance acted kind of funky in the soap. At first, it seemed to reverse trace, and it didn’t seem to want to incorporate well. Then, the soap didn’t rice exactly, but the consistency was strange. I stick blended it thoroughly, but it never seemed to get thicker than a thin trace.

So, I decided it pour it into the mold and put it away.

It looked fine. I sprayed it with alcohol about 30 minutes later, and it felt really hot and kind of squishy, but gelling a soap can sometimes resolve problems, so I left it alone for another 30 minutes. When I checked it again to spray it with alcohol one last time, it was in full gel, and the fragrance was weeping a bit from the sides of the mold.

It also has a little bit of cracking on the top, but I think that was more from me squeezing the mold a bit when I handled it. Still, that is really fast for a full gel to be going on, and I didn’t like the look of that weeping fragrance oil.

That was nothing. I tested it, and it was pretty much ready to unmold only hours later. This fragrance must have some crazy catalytic ingredients! It gave the surface of the soap a sort of “brainy” appearance that I’ve seen before when soap overheats in the mold. Remember my process was the same for making this soap as it was all the others. When I did shimmy it out of the mold, this is what I found.

The fragrance was weeping all around the parts of the soap that the mold touched. I wiped it off and let the soap dry a bit. Weeping fragrances are not necessarily terrible, and even essential oils will do it; however, it’s worth noting that I didn’t have this problem with fragrances #1-5.

Anyway, I cut it after a little while. It boggles my mind that the soap completely gelled and was ready cut in the spaces of less than 6 hours or so. Usually I have to wait at least 12 hours to cut.

As you can see, the soap is discolored yellow. I will monitor it to see if it continues to discolor. For the sake of comparison, here is a photo of this soap next to one made with fragrance #5, which did not discolor.

I can imagine that if this fragrance was used with a faster tracing recipe (butters, less olive, more palm), it might cause some real problems. The fragrance mellowed a bit after saponification, but I still cannot say I like the scent. It reminds me of something, but I can’t think of what. It isn’t pleasant, however, and I wouldn’t want to use it. Sorry, Bramble Berry, this one gets two big thumbs down—doesn’t smell good and is difficult to work with. I wouldn’t recommend it for your product line.

My initial impression of fragrance #4 was that it smelled sort of masculine. My nose must have been off! It smells fruity and a bit floral to me now. I am detecting an apple note to it. It’s a bit sour, but it smells really good.

The fragrance is slightly yellow right out of the bottle. I used the entire contents, which was 25 g, in my one-pound recipe. As I did with the previous test fragrances, I used a recipe of 45% olive oil, 25% coconut oil, 25% sustainable palm oil, and 5% castor oil. I also used full water. As before, I soaped at about 100 degrees.

I let this soap trace a little further before I added the fragrance, mainly because I was trying to take pictures and not having an easy time of it, for some reason. Here is the soap before the fragrance was added.

I stirred and then stick blended the fragrance in. It did not appear to accelerate because of the fragrance. I think I may have blended a bit much. Keep in mind that I also have a recipe high in olive. It’s possible butters combined with this fragrance might cause acceleration. No issues with ricing or discoloration, either, though the batter did initially turn a little bit yellow.

However, by the time I poured it into the mold, it was a creamier color again.

I did a little swirl on the top since it was at a thick enough trace, but it isn’t terribly noticeable.

It came out of my mold easily the next day, and it does not appear to have any discoloration.

It’s quite pretty! It smells delicious. I think saponification actually brought out some of the fragrance’s floral notes. I like this fragrance. So far, it appears to be strong in the soap. I will keep an eye on how well the fragrance sticks after a cure, as I plan to do with all the fragrances. Two thumbs up on this one, though!

I absolutely love this fragrance. It smells really juicy. It could be apple, but it smells more like pear to me, though there is a refreshing bite to it as well. It could be a Granny Smith Apple scent. It smells awesome! I am a big fan of fruity scents in general, and this particular scent might be my favorite of the eight.

Out of the bottle, it’s a clear, light color. Though this bottle had 29 grams, and my recipe calls for 25-26 grams of fragrance, I went ahead and used it all rather than leave three grams, mainly because I’m not sure what to do with just three grams of fragrance.

As I did with the first fragrance, I used a recipe with 45% olive oil, 25% coconut oil, 25% sustainable palm oil, and 5% castor oil. I used full water (38%) and a lye discount of 6%. I combined the lye mixture and oils at approximately 100 degrees. I blended the oils and lye to a very light trace. I used no additives or colorants.

Then I added the fragrance. I forgot to take a picture of the soap batter in the bowl after I combined the fragrance, but there was absolutely no change in color. The fragrance did not accelerate. If anything, it seemed to reverse trace a little bit. I wound up blending the soap a little bit more to thicken it before pouring it in the mold, and the fragrance didn’t misbehave at all. It was very easy to work with.

I poured the soap into the mold. As you can see, the soap batter is the same natural shade it would have been without any fragrance.

I gelled the soap and unmolded it. As you can see, there is absolutely no discoloration.

In fact, I realized that it discolored even less than scent #1. I didn’t think #1 discolored, but after seeing it next to #2, you can tell it does discolor the tiniest bit.

Fragrance #1 is on the right, and #2 is on the left. Fragrance #2 remains a beautiful creamy beige—very nearly white.

After gelling the soap, I noticed that the fragrance is not quite as strong as I’d like, and I will be interested to see how it does after a cure. I think one way to get around the problem of a light scent is not to gel the soap and to use more fragrance. However, for the purposes of testing, I think it’s important to see how the fragrance holds up to gelling. I do wish the scent were stronger after gelling it, but it is by no means completely dissipated.

Two thumbs way up! I love, love, love this scent. I want to find out what it is and buy it immediately. If you like fruity, juicy type scents, you will want to add this to your spring and summer line for sure. It’s an excellent summery scent, and I can see it working well with shades of green, white, yellow. My mouth is honestly watering just sniffing it. Bramble Berry, you MUST sell this one!

UPDATE: Several hours after I posted this review of the fragrance, I am struggling to detect any scent in the bars at all. I think perhaps this fragrance, while it smells wonderful, just doesn’t hold up well in cold process. It might be wonderful for hot process or lotions. It makes me sad because I absolutely loved it.