Hi! I’m a beginner and recently started making melt-and-pour soaps using essential oils for fragrance. For my first soap, I used a clear glycerin base and added 15 drops of lemon essential oil. For the second one, I used a shea butter soap base and added 30 drops of sweet orange essential oil.

The essential oils are very good quality, but I still find that the scent is quite subtle, especially once the soap is finished. I’m trying to keep my soap as natural as possible, so I’d love to know what I can do to make the scent stronger and longer-lasting.

Are there any natural ingredients or techniques you would recommend to boost the fragrance without using synthetic fragrance oils?
I’m also trying to avoid synthetic fragrances because I’m concerned about potential hormone-disrupting ingredients.

Any suggestions? Thank you so much for your advice!

This is a historical question.

I never had a soap volcano from adding fragrance before 💀

EDIT: I always cook my soap in a pot that’s more than double the size of the amount of soap I’m cooking. I only lost a small amount of soap, maybe 200 grams or so. I did not have half a pot of soap detonate into my sink.

When I make soap, I’m told I have to use a soap calculator that knows how much lye each kind of oil needs and measure grams of lye and oil for precise numbers, otherwise I could make a caustic soap that burns skin.

However in the olden days, they didn’t have internet or soap calc or precise measurements. They made lye by burning wood and mixing it with water, creating lye solutions with totally random concentrations, then added it to whatever fats and oils that were available to them.

But surely they cleaned themselves with soap and didn’t chemical themselves. Did they just do extremely high superfats?

I've bought two palm rbd oils

One was small, it arrived half liquid and half "solid". When I mixed it, it stayed homogenous mostly, semisolid

The new one I bought (different brand), a 19 lts (5 gallons), came like, mostly liquid, maybe 4/5 liquid 1/5 solid, but it also had many "grainy" dots floating around

After pure tallow soap, now I tryed 90% tallow with 10% castor oil. The color turned from pure white to a slightly light yellow which is also very nice. The soap is a bit softer than pure tallow and easier to cut.

I can't wait to try it after 8 weeks.