Essential oils are key to soap making. Not only do essential oils add a beautiful scent to your homemade soaps, but they also bring the wonderful properties that come with each oil such as calming, energising or anti-ageing.
But how do you use essential oils in soap making and how much is needed? How do you avoid the skin irritation that can be caused by pure essential oil?
We've put together a handy guide to some of the most popular essential oils for soap making, measurements for how much can be used in a batch of soap and more.
Contents:
- Why Use Essential Oils in Soap?
- Essential Oils VS Fragrance Oils
- Top Essential Oils For Soap Making
- How To Blend Essential Oils
- Soap Making with Essential Oils Tips
- How Much Essential Oil Do You Need?
- Why Are There Limits For Essential Oils?
- Conclusion
Why Use Essential Oils in Soap?
Essential oils are commonly used in soap as a natural fragrance. These concentrated oils bring a beautiful aroma to soap and they are 100% natural!
Not only are essential oils great for bringing beautiful fragrances to your soap, but some oils have their own therapeutic properties, from the calming effects of lavender to the energizing peppermint essential oil!
When using essential oils in soap, you need to handle them safely as they are a hazardous substance. Essential oils can also act differently in different types of soap, so always have your essential oils prepared before you start!
Essential Oils VS Fragrance Oils
Essential oils and fragrance oils both offer beautiful scents for your soap, but they are very different and have their own pros and cons.
Essential oils are natural oils obtained from plants, flowers, leaves or roots. These pure oils are highly concentrated and must be diluted before using on the skin. They can only be made from natural plants and not every plant contains an essential oil.
Fragrance oils are synthetic perfumes made to recreate popular scents. They are concentrated perfumes that still need to be diluted before using in cosmetics. Fragrance oils often have a much wider range of scents compared to essential oils.
So if you are looking for a wide range of scents and don’t mind if the oil is synthetic, then try fragrance oils. If you’re looking for natural oils and natural scents, then use essential oils for soap making!
Top Essential Oils For Soap Making
We've put together a list of the common essential oils you might like to use in your soap recipes to give you information on amounts to use, scents and benefits of the oil.
But before we get into the technical details, let’s look at which essential oils we recommend…
Lavender Essential Oil
Lavender essential oil is a mid-note and has a herbal, floral fragrance. Our lavender oil is from the Bulgarian lavender plant and it is well known for its ability to calm and soothe.
Lemon Essential Oil
Add a fresh and zesty scent to your soaps with lemon essential oil! It is extracted from the peel of the lemon fruit through steam distillation.
Rosemary Essential Oil
Rosemary essential oil is extracted from the leaves of the rosemary plant and has a beautiful, herbal and woody fragrance. It is a great unisex scent that everyone can use!
Patchouli Essential Oil
Patchouli is definitely the Marmite of the essential oil world - you either love it or hate it! It's a very strong, musky and earthy aroma that blends well with herbal and floral essential oils.
Cedarwood Essential Oil
Cedarwood oil has quite a masculine, woody, forest floor scent. The essential oil is steam distilled from the wood of the atlas cedar tree.
Sweet Orange Essential Oil
Pressed from the peel of fresh oranges, sweet orange essential oil has a beautiful refreshing, juicy, sweet and zingy aroma!
Peppermint Essential Oil
Peppermint has a well known refreshing aroma and the cooling effect of peppermint essential oil is wonderful in a summer soap!
Ylang Ylang Essential Oil
Ylang ylang essential oil is steam distilled from the flowers of the exotic Cananga Odorata Tree. The oil is a clear and golden colour with an exotic, floral, musky scent.
May Chang (Litsea Cubea) Essential Oil
May chang has a bright, fresh and zesty aroma. The essential oil is steam distilled from the fruit of the litsea cubua plant and it is perfect for bringing a refreshing, uplifting scent to soaps!
Lemongrass Essential Oil
Lemongrass essential oil is steam distilled from the lemongrass plant and has a sweet, oriental lemon scent.
How To Blend Essential Oils
Essential oils can be used on their own in a soap, but you can also create unique scents by blending different essential oil notes together!
When blending essential oils it is important to understand top notes, middle and base notes. Top notes are the first scent you will experience in the soap but they don't last too long. Middle notes will start to come through once the top notes fade and base note essential oils are the longest lasting part of the blend. You can read about this in more detail here!
So which type of note are our essential oils?
Top notes: Lemon essential oil, sweet orange essential oil and peppermint essential oil
Middle notes: Lavender essential oil, may chang essential oil, rosemary essential oil and lemongrass essential oil
Base notes: Patchouli essential oil, cedarwood essential oil and ylang ylang essential oil
You can blend any essential oils, but it may not smell great as certain scents suit other scents better!
Here are some of our favourite blends for each essential oil:
Lavender essential oil
Lavender is very versatile and blends well with almost every scent! Blend lavender with citrus oils, spicy scents, floral scents and earthy oils!
Lemon essential oil
Lemon can be a tricky scent to fix in your soap, so we recommend blending it with a base and middle note essential oil to balance it out.
Rosemary essential oil
Rosemary blends well with so many other essential oils including lavender, patchouli, lemongrass and peppermint.
Patchouli essential oil
Patchouli blends well with florals such as lavender or geranium. It also goes well with rosemary.
Cedarwood essential oil
Cedarwood blends really well with herbal essential oils such as clary sage or frankincense as well as the citrus essential oils.
Sweet orange essential oil
Sweet orange blends well with cinnamon leaf essential oil and clove bud essential oil to make a festive Christmas blend. Try sweet orange and geranium for a floral hit with or patchouli if you prefer a little earthiness in your shower.
Peppermint essential oil
Peppermint blends well with lavender, rosemary, tea tree, eucalyptus, lemongrass to name but a few but go easy as it will over power many other essential oils.
Ylang ylang essential oil
Ylang ylang can be a little too much on its own but as part of a blend gives a fantastic depth of fragrance. We recommend blending it with sandalwood and rose geranium or lavender and grapefruit blend for a lighter scent.
May chang essential oil
May chang goes really well with lime, lemongrass and bergamot for a citrus sensory overload.
Lemongrass essential oil
Lemongrass blends so well with lavender, rosemary, peppermint, ylang ylang, tea tree and more.
Soap Making with Essential Oils Tips
The three different ways to make soap are cold process soap making, melt and pour soap making and hot process soap making. Essential oils need to be used slightly differently depending on which type of soap you are making.
Over the years we’ve improved our essential oil knowledge in soap making, so let’s go over some key things to be aware of!
Tips For Cold Process Soap Making
When adding essential oils to trace in cold process soap making, some oils may cause some problems. So before you add them, make sure you have weighed out and mixed the essential oils before you start!
Certain essential oils (like cinnamon or clove) have a tendency to speed up the trace process which results in the soap seizing.
To avoid this, we would recommend using a spoon or spatula to mix in the essential oils so they are mixed in slowly. Usually you would use a stick blender, but this will accelerate trace as well!
The key thing to remember is to have your soap mould ready! Once the soap has reached trace, pour it into the mould as soon as possible.
As always, we recommend wearing gloves when handling the essential oils. If the essential oils make contact with bare skin, it may cause irritation or a reaction. Make sure to wash off the essential oil with soap if contact occurs.
Here’s a simple cold process soap recipe to try: Patchouli & Orange Soap Recipe
Tips For Melt And Pour Soap Making
Essential oils don’t affect melt and pour soaps too much, but some oils may change the soap colour. So if you want a white soap, we would suggest using clear oils like peppermint and avoiding strong coloured oils like sweet orange!
When handling essential oils for melt and pour soap making, we recommend wearing gloves as the essential oils could irritate the skin. If an essential oil comes in contact with your skin, make sure to wash it off with soap straight away.
Before you start your melt and pour soap, make sure your essential oils and other ingredients are weighed out and ready to go.
Here’s a simple soap recipe: Lavender Melt and Pour Soap Recipe
Tips For Hot Process Soap Making
Hot process soap is very forgiving when adding essential oils and it does not cause the soap to seize!
However, if you add the essential oils to the soap and then cook it for a few hours, your kitchen will smell for a few days! We recommend adding the essential oils after the soap has cooked.
Essential oils are irritants when applied to the skin directly, so make sure to wear gloves when handling them! If the essential oils come in contact with your skin, be sure to wash your hands with soap as soon as possible.
Here is a simple hot process soap recipe: Oatmeal Soap Recipe Hot Process
How Much Essential Oil Do You Need?
In most recipes, it is recommended to use between 30-35g of essential oils for 1kg of soap.
This is a good guideline to avoid adding too much essential oil. However, it doesn’t work for every essential oil! Some essential oils have very low usage rates and can be irritating for the skin if too much is added.
For each essential oil you want to add soap, you need to check category 9 in the IFRA document to know how much essential oil to use.
For example, if category 9 in the IFRA document says 0.5%, you can add a maximum of 5g of essential oil to 1kg of soap. If you do not check the usage rates, you risk adding too much essential oil which can be unsafe!
However, if the usage rate is anything higher than 3.5% (35g per 1kg of soap), do not add that much! It is not necessary to add more than the recommended amount, even if the IFRA says you can. For example, the usage rate for lavender is not limited, but we should only use up to 3.5% in our soap!
Here are the maximum usage rates for our favourite essential oils for soap making:
- Lavender Essential Oil - 3.5%
- Lemon Essential Oil - 3.5%
- Rosemary Essential Oil - 3.5%
- Patchouli Essential Oil - 3.5%
- Cedarwood Essential Oil - 3.5%
- Sweet Orange Essential Oil - 3.5%
- Peppermint Essential Oil - 3.5%
- Ylang Ylang Essential Oil - 1.4%
- May Chang Essential Oil - 1.5%
- Lemongrass Essential Oil - 1.4%
These usage rates apply for any type of soap making, so always check the usage rates before you make your soap!
Why Are There Limits For Essential Oils?
I know what you’re thinking, essential oils are natural oils so why can’t I apply them directly to my skin? The truth is, essential oils are much more complex compared to other natural oils. Let me explain.
Essential oils are a complicated mixture of natural constituents. Some of the constituents that make up each essential oil can cause irritation and allergic reactions on the skin. These are called allergens.
There are over 80 different allergens that naturally occur in essential oils and each essential oil has its own composition of allergens. Luckily, we have an allergen declaration for every essential oil so you know exactly what it is made up of!
To avoid the risk of allergic reactions, essential oils must be diluted before being used directly on the skin. Like we discussed before, the IFRA document for each essential oil will tell you exactly how much you can use!
Conclusion
Using more than one essential oil in your soap recipe usually has better results than using a single essential oil.
Check the IFRA document, looking at Category 9 for the maximum safe usage rate for your essential oils before making your soap.
Don't be afraid to experiment and try different things!
So, what essential oils will you be adding to your homemade soaps? Comment below and let us know.
Continue Reading
Now that you've learned how to use essential oils for soap making, why not continue learning about essential oils?
- Interested in rosemary essential oil? Find out if rosemary oil is good for hair growth
- Want to try cold process soap making? Try our honey soap recipe
- Want to know the evidence behind unusual essential oil claims? Read more about ginger oil for weight loss.
- Learn more about essential oils with our best essential oils for spring blog
Let us know in the comments which essential oils you'll be using in your soap!
4 comments
Hi Nabil,
No problem, I’ll try to answer your questions below:
1. Here’s how we do it: Measure your essential oils in your soap recipe by weight, not volume. Add up the total weight of all the ingredients in your soap (including all base oils, essential oils, colourants, water and sodium hydroxide). Then divide the weight of the essential oil by the total weight of your ingredients, and multiply by 100. That’s your percentage essential oil in the soap.
2. This is a big topic, each essential oil has its own risks of adulteration. Unfortunately it is impossible to test for this at home, and can only be done in a lab. I hope to publish more information about this in the future.
3. The main difference between the two is appearance. Cold process soap bars have a nice, clean appearance and you can easily do colour swirls. Hot process soap looks more rustic, is often a little uneven and it is pretty much impossible to do colour swirls.
4. If you’re looking for rustic soap bars, then hot process soap making is a good method to use. Take a look at one of our hot process soap recipes to see what I mean.
Hope this helps,
Andy
Thank you indeed for a very insightful article, using a baby-step approach, easy to comprehend especially for the very beginners. No secrets, but open books in all aspects. My four questions, if you allow me:
1. How can you measure the percentage of scented oils in the final product of soaps’ weight? Is there a way yo measure this at home, or it has to be done at the lab?
2. How can we make sure that the essential oils are authentic and pure and real natural oils with no additives or coloring, or what call ot organic? Is there a way yo test the products at home?
3. What are the main differences between cold processed and hot processed soap making? Is there any main difference or impact on the final end soap product, whether the color, the scent, the chemical structure, etc…
4. Is there any advice to help adding a rustic look to the end product, just to have that attractive look?
Thank you. Nabil
Hi Sandra,
When we gave the % usage rates we were thinking of the final weight of the soap. However this is more useful for melt and pour soap making.
If you’re looking for cold process usage rates, 30-35g of essential oil for each 1kg of oils is a good place to start.
However, the % essential oil in the finished recipe should not exceed the IFRA maximum % for class 9.
For example, if you made a cinnamon soap with 30g of cinnamon essential oil and 1kg of base oils, you would have 30g of essential oil in around 1500g of finished soap. This is a 2% dilution, and exceeds the 0.5% maximum set for cinnamon essential oil in the IFRA guidelines.
Hope this helps!
Andy
When calculating the amount of essential oils in cold process soap, you mention the weight of soap. Is this the total weight of oils/butters used or the final weight of the bars of completed soap?
Many thanks,
Sandra