If You Love Vanilla Scented Soaps...

I know that lots of people love the rich, warm smell of vanilla, and it's just brilliant as an added fragrance with so many other scents! Vanilla fragrances, even the artificial ones, have a component in them called "vanillin". It's what gives the vanilla fragrance that heady, wonderful aroma.

But.

Yeah, there always seems to be a "but" on the things you love, right?

Vanilla in soap turns brown over time. I'm not talking years, I'm talking days. It doesn't impact the wonderful benefits of the soap. And sometimes, the color is even very pretty...unless you were wanting a brilliant white, or a nice pink, or a soft seafoam green. Then the last thing you want is a tannish to brown soap. It'll tick you off, I promise.

So what can be done? Why, there's a product for that, of course! It's called vanilla stabilizer, and depending on where you buy it, it can be virtually odorless, or it can make you think you squashed a stink-bug! Some of it's really, really nasty smelling, and can overwhelm the fragrance of your beautiful soaps.

I don't like putting extra additives into my soap. It's costly, it's just more chemicals, and even with the stabilizer, if you store your soap or keep it pristine and on display because "it's too pretty to use!"...the vanilla will eventually turn brown anyway. (And I'm going to address that "It's too pretty to use!" thing in another blog post, rest assured.)

What are the other options? One is to avoid vanilla fragrances...which is kind of hard to do. The other option is to understand the nature of the beast, and if you've got to have vanilla in your soaps, accept that it's going to turn brownish, and that nothing's wrong with it. Perhaps decide in advance to just leave that soap uncolored, so you won't be facing the whole issue of "It's so pretty" this week followed abruptly by "Gawd! It's hideous!" the next week. The discoloration really won't impact the soap in any other way. It'll still clean your skin beautifully, and smell wonderful whilst doing so.

But if you must have non-discoloring, brightly colored soaps and you want them in vanilla scents or fragrances with trace amounts of vanilla in them...then the option for you is the stabilizer. I've found one that I can smell slightly when it's mixed, but not after the soap's cured. And it does keep your soap from discoloring. Just realize it's not magic...I'm not standing over a cauldron with the soap bubbling away whilst I chant an incantation. It's a chemical process that requires chemicals to counteract.

Since most of my soaps are custom-ordered and custom-made, I wasn't aware of this at first because they don't hang around long. A regular customer bought six bars at once, and I never heard from him again. Then I discovered that his bars had turned from a lovely creamy white and blue, to something that was less than esthetically pleasing. I'm pretty sure he thought I'd given him inferior products, and was too polite to talk to me about it. Back then, I was scared to dredge it up, not knowing what on earth had happened. So I began reading and talking with others who made soap, and discovered this information. Lots of research went into correcting the problem before it became a problem again.

Now you're as informed as I am! Yay you!

So when you decide that you simply MUST try my Mulberry-Orange-Vanilla fragrance combination in a soap, and you want it to be a pretty pink and orange...we can do that.