Natural Soaps with Essential oils. Do you like?

[mkultra]

Does anyone here use all natural soaps with essential oils. If so, what do you like about them and what oils do you favor. I'm starting to make soap and im interested in opinions.

[RadiationTherapy]

1. I prefer non-floral 'disinfectant' oils like

mint, eucalyptus, thyme, sage, clove, all citrus, birch.

For florals, I trust lavender for wide appeal, but the rest are very subjective.

[mkultra]

2. lavender is very common

amongst the other soaps i have seen and actual citrus essential oils(non fragrances) are tough to make into soaps because of their flashpoint.


Have you ever used cedar or cypress?

[RadiationTherapy]

7. No, I haven't.

[quiet.american]

3. Sandalwood soap is one of my all-time favorites. nt

[mkultra]

5. yeah, sandlewood was a long time favorite of mine

but i think Tea-tree has taken its place. I made a lemon and tee tree recently that was great together.

[aquattro_660]

4. love em'

only soaps I use

[mkultra]

6. can you tell me what your favorties are?

[Lex]

8. Peppermint.

I love that Pepperment Dr. Bronner's liquid soap. Really refreshing and tingly.

[mkultra]

12. wow, thats sounds interesting

Is it shampoo or just hand soap?

[Lex]

15. Shampoo, body wash, or hand soap. It can be used for all.

bar soap or

liquid soap

[mkultra]

17. Its castille too so it should be mild.

[hippywife]

9. I use goat milk soaps

which I purchase through our coop. They are wonderful. They have done wonders moisturizing my skin without any additional lotions.

My hubs likes the hemp oil because he doesn't like heavily fragranced things, I use the patchouli or cocoa butter ones. I don't like heavy fragrances in most things either but these leave a nice but very light scent on my skin.

They last so much longer than a typical bar of soap, too. I have a nag champa bar I'm waiting to use when the current patchouli bar is finally gone. That's gonna take a while yet. LOL

[mkultra]

13. many natural soaps

retain the glycerins that big pharma pulls out and sells. do you think its the goats milk that's doing the moisturizing or maybe just the soap?

[hippywife]

23. No glycerin, either.

They are all oils, such as olive, coconut, jojoba mixed in with the goats milk in a variety of light natural scents from essential oils. I think it's the combination of the oils and the goats milk, which has some restorative properties of its own.

I hope you do well. You can sell things like that in the DU Marketplace if you didn't already know that.

:hi:

[mkultra]

25. huh, i didnt know

by the way, what do you mean by "no glycerin". Soap is created by the breakdown of the fat chains into soap+glycerin. A good natural soap shoull still contain all of its natural glycerins.

thanks for the advice btw. The last batch of soap i made was with Coconut, Palm Kernel, and Olive oil. sounds familiar.

[tango-tee]

27. Coconut sounds great to use during summer!

Its scent would make you feel as though you were on vacation in the Carribean, instead of getting ready to go to work.

There are so many wonderful suggestions here!

[hippywife]

28. I really don't know anything

about soap making but in our coop all practices and ingredients must be listed. :shrug:

[mkultra]

29. yeah, i doubt they add any Glycerin

what im saying is that the olive, coconut, and jojoba oils will break apart making Soap and glycerin. This is the way it has been for centuries and the glycerin is a natural moisturizer. These big pharmas take out that natural glycerin and sell it because it's valuable then they have to add something back in to replace the moisturizing action. They add some chemical back in then they claim "with added moisturizers" which is really just chemical company bull.

[kimi]

10. I love natural soaps and shampoo bars

The usual essential oils of lavender, bergamot, lemon, sweet orange, rosemary, clove, cinnamon - are all nice. I prefer spicy scents myself, if there is one floral I really prefer more than lavender it would be ylang ylang. I also especially like ginger, and ginger with orange has always been a favorite.

Have fun!

[mkultra]

14. bergamot has very strong medicinal qualities

ginger sounds interesting.

[Beaverhausen]

11. Sweetgrass, lavendar and rosemary

lemon can be nice, too

[Arkansas Granny]

16. Some of my favorites are lavender, sandalwood and ylang ylang.

I also love patchouli, but apparently it is a generational thing. Most younger people seem to think it smells like dirt. Maybe you had to be around for the 60's.

[mkultra]

18. i like patchouli and so does my wife.

I think its a hippy thing

[Inchworm]

19. I'm going to grow Hyssop this year

I'm just growing it because it's pretty, but looking for uses.

"essential oils" comes up a lot while reading about it.

:hi:

[mkultra]

21. In my limited knowledge

Hyssop can be good for many things like dermatitis,eczema, inflammation or wounds topically.

It also has internal applications as well that i can enumerate if you would like. To obtain the essential oils it must be steam distilled.

It should be avoided by those with high blood pressure or those who are pregnant.

Very pretty though.

You can use it as an astringent.

[Orrex]

20. I prefer extraneous oils.

[mkultra]

22. or miscellaneous oils

[Orrex]

24. Assorted lubricants.

Hmm...

[tango-tee]

26. The pharmacy right across our courtyard

makes its own line of all-natural beauty products right here on the premises. All of them without animal testing.

There is an Arabian black coffee soap, which is said to remove stubborn odors from your hands, such as onion and garlic. And it does really smell like freshly-brewed coffee!

My favorite is a wonderful Sicilian blood orange soap. I just can't resist the light, clean, fresh fragrance.

These soaps are wrapped in tissue-thin paper, and as you pick up a bar for the "sniff test", the scent coming through the wrapping is absolutely delicious.

I think most women (and especially men!) have an affinity for something refreshing and clean-smelling for their shower or bath. I would choose a scent from the citrus family to start with. Something with grapefruit would be nice, perhaps?

I wish you much success, mkultra! When you're ready, I'd be happy to buy a few bars of your soaps!

[mkultra]

30. thanks for the encouragment

The citrus soaps are hard to make due to the flashpoints of the essential oils. The citrus fragrances may have higher flahspoints but i consider fragrances to be synthetics which is a line i working not to cross.

I do love them the most though. If i get a a batch tuned up ill probably send out some free samples.

[greenmutha]

32. Are you doing hot process or cold process?

If you make them using cold process, you can be very successful with citrus essential oils. (I've been making soap for 13 years now.) Another tip... a little Lemongrass essential oil helps citrus scents hold better. :-)

[mkultra]

36. im doing hot in order to *preserve* the essential oils

my belief is that the lye will break down the EOs but i welcome your knowledge. Thanks for the lemongrass tip though.

[greenmutha]

37. IMHO...

I think that the higher temps used in hot process destroy more of the benefits (and level of scent) of the EOs... but I'm not a chemist, so what do I know? ;-)

As I said, I do cold process. I take the oils (all veggie) and lye water solution to a fairly thick trace before I add EOs, in order to (hopefully) react as much lye with the veggie oils as possible before adding the EOs to the mix.

Are you on any of the soap & toiletry-making discussion groups yet? They are a *wealth* of information and support. (The ones at yahoo groups aren't very active anymore, but if you join them you'll have access to the archives where there is a TON of info and recipes):

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/userhomesoap/

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/1Toiletries/

http://forum.thesage.com/


Soapmaking is *very* addictive... Have fun! :toast:

[mkultra]

40. well, you are correct, in my case

i do the hot process and wait for the final to cool down below EO flashpoint then add them. This helps insure that the EO's are preserved almost completely.

[tango-tee]

38. There was something else I just now thought of.

It was a soap/shampoo with just the faintest hint of a baby powder scent. It was only enough to tickle the senses a bit, but I have no idea what the special ingredient could have been. It was so gentle to the skin. That was a product which was not for sale, but a courtesy at a Paris hotel. Oh, half a lifetime ago.

To this day, I'be able to recognize this whiff of a scent.

[Fire Walk With Me]

31. The east Indian Mysore Sandalwood soaps are my favorites.

After searching my entire life for a satisfactory soap.

[pitohui]

33. no they irritate the skin

this fetish w. "essential oils" needs to go, they are not "essential," they are irritating

my vote is obv. i very much dislike them

as for specific choices mentioned in this thread, i associate essential oil of peppermint w. its old use of scaring off cockroaches in shared buildings (apartment complexes where you don't have control over the cleanliness of the entire bldg) -- that scent in particular does not bring back pleasant memories

i experimented w. a number of others, and several caused skin irritation but it is too long ago for me to remember specifics

some things about the 60s, 70s, and 80s are better off left there, and essential oils are pretty high on that list...right up there with nixon and reagan, for my money

a soap should be in v. brief contact w. skin, the briefest possible to get you clean, and it should be mild not scented unless its "real" job is just to sit in a dish and never be used, which i suppose is the "real" job of the foofy soaps

[SoCalDem]

34. My favorite soap comes from The South Point Hotel in Vegas

I always "stock up" when we go there :evilgrin:.. (The suite has OOOOOODLES of bars of the stuff between the kitchen/bar & the separate bathroom & shower room)..and they are bigger than the usual sample-sized bars usually found at hotels:)

It's Coconut, Lime, Verbena by Body & Bath Works, but they do not sell the bar soap in their stores, and I LOATHE the shower gel..

[kimmerspixelated]

35. I try to only use natural with essential oils. Lavendar is my fave.

I love anything with coconut oil or lemon verbena as well. I have many faves. Rose is great!

[GoCubsGo]

39. I like Magno soap from Spain.

It's a glycerine-based soap with sea salts that is black in color. It has a patchouli-herb blend that smells wonderful. Wish it weren't so damned expensive.

[southpaw]

41. Rosemary - Peppermint

I bought a couple of cakes of natural soap from a lady at a farmer's market last summer. The combination of rosemary and peppermint is simply wonderful!

That farmer's market should be opening up again soon. Hopefully she will be back this year.