How to Scent Your Soap: Essential Oils Vs. Fragrance Oils

After you master your first few batches of plain soap, you will likely want to begin experimenting with additives. This includes: scents, colors and an entire realm of different ingredients.

One of the main decisions many soap makers have to make is whether they want to use fragrance oils, essential oils or both.  For those of you who do not know the difference between fragrance oils and essential oils I will briefly clarify.

Fragrance oils are synthetic fragrances that are created from a combination of chemical compounds. Because fragrance oils are not limited to naturally occurring scents such as those from plants or flowers they can mimic a wider variety of scents that may not occur in nature.

In contrast, essential oils are naturally occurring chemical compounds that are concentrated and distilled from plant matter such as flowers, leaves, wood, fruit peels and other organic matter.

The benefit of fragrance oils is that they are more cost effective and they offer a great diversity of scents that cant be distilled from nature such as "fresh rain" or "strawberry lemonade". The drawback of fragrance oils is that their ingredients are not transparent and they can be made from virtually any combination of chemical compounds without a traceable origin. For myself personally, using essential oils better aligns with my all natural products ingredients.This is simply my opinion on the subject.

Moving onto essential oils. The main benefits of essential oils are that both the soap maker and anyone using the soap can know exactly what fragrance ingredients are in the product. Because essential oils are concentrated from natural sources they are often described as having a more "natural fragrance" while fragrance oils can be described as "artificial smelling" by some. Additionally, unlike fragrance oils, many essential oils are said to have therapeutic properties such as tea tree and lavender.  The downside of essential oils are the reverse of fragrance oils. Because essential oils come from natural sources prices vary widely based on many factors of production. Due to this, many soap makers will find only certain essential oils are economical to use in soap.

One of the best ways to find whether you prefer to use fragrance oils or essential oils in your soap and other products is to try them both. Most soap makers find they prefer one or the other based on their experimentation and personal preferences. Whats your take on fragrance oils vs. essential oils in your skincare products?