Orange is one of my favorite scents, and a difficult one to find for soap.
Most citrus scents are notorious for fading in cold process soap, and orange is no exception. They do not like high alkalinity! And it is also difficult to find one that smells like an actual orange and not like an orange flavored candy. The only one I had found that was a true orange scent was Orange Essential Oil 10x, because it is the real thing! and the 10x means it is very concentrated, concentrated enough to survive saponification (the process where oils mixed with lye and water become soap through a chemical transformation process).
However, essential oils can be fleeting after 8 -12 months (which actually, now that I think about it is not bad, why should I hold on to a soap for longer than that?), but they are also pricey. So I wanted to get a fragrance oil instead. The issue with most orange fragrance oils is that they have a chemical smell out of the bottle and/or smell like orange candy, or smell nice but are weak and fade in soap. After trying 4 different orange fragrance oils, (and getting rid of the two that disappointed me*), I think I have found a keeper. Funnily enough, it was in my own stash, I had used it before but only in blends. The fragrance I am referring to is Blood Orange from Nature’s Garden and Candles. (However; keep reading before thinking about buying it, curing time changed things…)
As I type, I have just cut the soap, which means that I need to wait at least a month to check how well it stays in the soap after the cure, but if my memory serves me right, this stayed strong in the blend from last year.
I also made some soaps with Sweet Orange and Chili Pepper (from Nature’s Garden) it is a sweet orangey fragrance I have used before, but its usage rate under the new IFRA guidelines has dropped to 3%. I made them at the same time to compare.
I should note I blended both with Orange 5x Essential oil, to a 75% FO -25% EO ratio. The essential oil gave the bars a soft yellow color, so no colorant was needed.
After cutting, the Blood orange and EO blend smells more authentic (it is the one with orange slices on top)
The Sweet orange and chili pepper with EO (Orange 5x) blend smells more sweet, candy like. (The one with orange slices on the front)
I made them on 9/16 and 9/18, 2022 but just now reviewing this blog post.
One Month Later…
Unfortunately, once the soaps cured, I was not as pleased with the blood orange scented one, the fragrance mostly smells like a bitter orange. I think this fragrance will do well in blends, but I won’t use it by itself again.
Two Months Later…
I brought both soaps to a Christmas craft show and set them up side by side. The sweet orange and chili pepper sold out the first day of the market and so far no one has purchased the blood orange
So what to do? I guess the search continues. Or I could try using the Sweet Orange and Chili pepper at 3% and see if it is strong enough, or just use it in Hot Process soaps. I do like the Yuzu fragrance from Elements Bath and Body; however that is more of a citrus sweet blend, Do you have an orange fragrance oil recommendation?
*The ones that disappointed me were: FRESH SQUEEZED ORANGE from Nature’s Garden and SATSUMA ORANGE from Nurture Soap. They faded a lot for me, fairly quickly
Soaps by Glenda 