EO behavior at soaping time

[topofmurrayhill]

I've been searching around for info on how well-behaved EOs are in soaping. Generally it sounds pretty encouraging, but the ones I've seen people complain about include:

 

Clove. Clove! Clove!!!

Cinnamon

Fir

Tea Tree?

 

There seems to be a consensus about clove. Is it even usable? I've gathered it can/does cause a seize.

 

Wondering if anyone has experience they'd like to share on the behavior of EOs and which ones accelerate trace.

[TallTayl]

Clove is usable. The Eugenol in it is a known accelerator, and heater.

Steps that help:

Keep the clove to a minimum and use in a blend. The IFRA limitation for clove bud EO, for instance, in category 9 (soap) is only 0.5%, so REALLY low.

Keep working temps low.

Don't short water as much in the lye solution.

Combine with other essences known to decrease acceleration, such as citruses, pine, etc.

[iansmommaya]

I use it like Talltayl suggests. I blend it with hmmm... ten other essential oils, orange, vanilla, a bunch of citrus, etc. and it is a super low rate in the blend, but it does add a really nice note, I also don't water discount (I've tried water discounting with that blend and it does heat more then others' do.) and I move fast.

[cindym]

I have never had a problem with tea tree. 

 

How are you top???

Edited March 30, 2015 by cindym

[Candybee]

I use clove in my orange spice blend. Like others, I soap at room temp, no water discount, and blend the clove with other oils. So my main oil is orange 10x, followed by smaller and split % of both clove and cinnamon and allspice. I also add a little honey FO to the blend to sweeten it. The clove is really strong anyway and you don't need a lot for it to cure strong in CP.

 

Anyway, with this blend I had time to do a 3 color swirl. So working with clove is doable if you use caution.

 

Re tea tree. I am one of those that just can't get over the smell of it. To me it stinks. To others they like it. IDK. I still have the same bottle of tea tree I bought several years ago. I have customers ask me every summer for a tea tree soap. So its worth making it if I can learn to tolerate it.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Candybee

[topofmurrayhill]

Clove is usable. The Eugenol in it is a known accelerator, and heater.

Steps that help:

Keep the clove to a minimum and use in a blend. The IFRA limitation for clove bud EO, for instance, in category 9 (soap) is only 0.5%, so REALLY low.

Keep working temps low.

Don't short water as much in the lye solution.

Combine with other essences known to decrease acceleration, such as citruses, pine, etc.

 

Thanks much. I believe that means 0.5% eugenol in the finished product. Let's take that exactly literally and say the weight of the finished product includes oil, caustic, and residual water after curing. The most useful thing to know might be how much clove oil that represents relative to oil. It's going to vary a bit depending on the sap value of the oil mixture, so let's figure it out for a sample recipe:

 

30% Coconut Oil 76

30% Palm Oil

30% Olive Oil, Refined A

10% Shea Butter

 

Assuming 80% eugenol in clove oil:

 

0.5 % max eugenol * 1.2 = max 0.625 % clove oil concentration in the product

 

We soap 1 lb oil:

 

453.6 g oil + 64.7 g sodium hydroxide = 518.3 g soap, dry weight

 

Assume 5% residual water after curing:

 

518.3 / .95 = 545.6 g soap and moisture

 

Weight of finished product with .625% concentration of 80% eugenol clove oil:

 

545.6 / .99375 = 549 g total product weight

 

The amount of clove oil is:

 

549 - 545.6 = 3.4 g

 

Max clove oil = 3.4 g or .12 oz ppo

[TallTayl]

actually the IFRA guideline is for the whole clove bud essential oil, not just the eugenol fraction. Makes the math a little easier for sure!

 

You're spot on track with the 0.5% of Clove EO guideline as a percent of "finished product" inclusive of lye and water. The hard math comes from figuring out what the 'finished product' for soap will be since quite a bit of the water will evaporate out over time, but 5% seems very conservative. With something like Clove, conservative is pretty smart.

 

I typically use PPO (per pound of oils) for all scent additive measurements since that number does not fluctuate whereas water and lye measurements can depending on solution strength and superfat of a given batch. Makes batch tracking easier to fit into my SOP's and reduces my chances for error, especially on really busy soap making days.

 

It's really great that the IFRA certificates are becoming so readily available. Hopefully people see that eugenol is the main culprit for the low usage rate, and take that into consideration when blending with other eugenol containing essences. If only the process to read IFRA limits was not so arse backwards.

[topofmurrayhill]

actually the IFRA guideline is for the whole clove bud essential oil, not just the eugenol fraction. Makes the math a little easier for sure!

 

The IRFA standard is indeed for .5% eugenol, not the EO. This is the relevant page in the standards booklet:

 

http://www.ifraorg.org/view_document.aspx?docId=23192

 

That makes more sense, because we need a guideline that applies to eugenol contributions from multiple sources in one product. They suggest basing calculations on the actual analysis for your material. Alternatively, they provide maximum concentrations of eugenol in various sources in Annex I of the standard, which is here:

 

http://www.ifraorg.org/view_document.aspx?docId=22268

 

Since we're discussing it, the information for eugenol-containing EOs might as well live here in the forum as well, so here is the list from Annex I:

 

Clove bud/leaf/stem oil < 90%

Cinnamon leaf oil < 85%

Pimento berry or leaf oil < 85%

Bay oil < 56%

Carnation absolute < 15%

Basil oil (Linalool type) < 15%

Cinnamon bark oil < 6%

Hyacinth absolute < 2%

Laurel leaf (Laurus nobilis) oil (sweet bay oil) < 2%

Rose oils (Bulgaria, Morocco, China, Turkey) < 1.5%

Mace oil < 1.1%

Citronella oil (Java, China, Vietnam) < 1%

Rose absolutes (volatile part) < 1%

Tuberose absolute < 1%

Cananga oil < 0.7%

Nutmeg oil < 0.6%

Basil oil (Estragole type) < 0.5%

Cassia oil < 0.5%

Ylang-ylang extra < 0.5%

Ylang-ylang extra super < 0.5%

Ylang-ylang type I, II and III < 0.5%

Cascarilla oil < 0.3%

Lemongrass oils < 0.3%

Origanum oil (Spanish) < 0.3%

Tolu balsam absolute (VP *) < 0.3%

Estragon oil (Tarragon oil, Artemisia dracunculus L.) < 0.2%

Tagete patula oil/ absolute (VP *). ND dans T. minuta < 0.2%

Davana oil < 0.1%

Myrtle oil < 0.1%

Spike Lavender oil < 0.1%

Citronella oil (Ceylon) Traces < 0.1%

 

Technically, I should have been conservative and based my calculations on 90% eugenol rather than 80% in clove bud oil. That would bring us down to:

 

Max clove oil = 3 g or .11 oz ppo

[topofmurrayhill]

You're spot on track with the 0.5% of Clove EO guideline as a percent of "finished product" inclusive of lye and water. The hard math comes from figuring out what the 'finished product' for soap will be since quite a bit of the water will evaporate out over time, but 5% seems very conservative. With something like Clove, conservative is pretty smart.

 

I typically use PPO (per pound of oils) for all scent additive measurements since that number does not fluctuate whereas water and lye measurements can depending on solution strength and superfat of a given batch. Makes batch tracking easier to fit into my SOP's and reduces my chances for error, especially on really busy soap making days. 

 

There are two things that can affect the calculation, sometimes worth bothering with, sometimes not.

 

Lye discount: I forgot to mention that I assumed a 5% lye discount. The sodium hydroxide amount in my example has been multiplied by 95% to reflect the discount. Deviating significantly from 5% could change the numbers enough to matter.

 

Recipe: Recipe variations might not be a big factor except with large changes in the percentage of lauric oils, which could affect the sodium hydroxide amount significantly. If you completely leave out things like coconut and palm kernel, versus my inclusion at 30%, it might be worth recalculating. Same if you go to the other extreme and make one of those 100% coconut oil soaps. I hoped the sample oil mixture would have a SAP value somewhere in the vicinity of "average."

 

The lye concentration isn't relevant, because we are interested in the final product, not the newly-made product. The amount of sodium hydroxide will be the same regardless of the lye concentration you choose, and the amount of water should eventually be the same, given enough time.

I chose the 5% residual water based on Kevin Dunn's experiments with lye concentration. Within the time frame of his tests (a 60 day cure, if I remember correctly), the lowest-water batches were settling down around 50 ppt. The others were taking longer to cure. The final percentage of water in the soap will vary with the oils and environmental conditions.

[TallTayl]

I used imprecise wording on my posts above. I won't bother clarifying in this post, but wanted to show the example IFRA certificate (current amendment) i was referring to. This is an example of what a few forward thinking suppliers provide. It does not state here HOW to apply the limit for general Cat 9 for example, just that the suggested limit is 0.5%. Within each category are many sub categories for format of the product, but not listed here.

Not all suppliers use the same stick to measure how the limit should be calculated. The vast majority suggest PPO so that the math is consistent, simple and reliable enough to be used correctly, and to provide a nice margin of error. A few suggest all ingredients in final product (without accounting for evaporation in soap curing process).

Not one of the common suppliers offers a CoA for the specific small lot of oils provided at purchase, so we are all working within historical averages. That alone makes calculations impossible for the average soap maker to be scientifically precise.

Various SAP calculators all work within ranges. Not many people have systems designed to quickly calculate based on figures from the actual CoA for every ingredient in the pot, so the tenths and hundredths of a decimal point are not easy to agree upon for a wash off product. I am just very happy to accept that people at least understand that 0.5% is not the same as 5% or an oz PPO.

Natures Garden Candle Supplies

42109 State Route 18 Wellington, OH 44090

1-866-647-2368 or 1-440-647-0100

www.candlepro.com

This is to confirm that the subject essential oil is composed of the single natural essential oil mentioned in compliance with the most recent guidelines published by I.F.R.A . (International Fragrance Association). The IFRA standards are based on safety assessments from RIFM. (Research Institute for Fragrance Materials).

Essential Oil Name: 100% Pure and All-Natural Clove Buds FCC (Native Distilled) Essential Oil

APPLICATION

MAXIMUM USE LEVEL

CATEGORY 1 .2%

CATEGORY 2 .2%

CATEGORY 3 .5%

CATEGORY 4 .5%

CATEGORY 5 .5%

CATEGORY 6 4%

CATEGORY 7 .4%

CATEGORY 8 .5%

CATEGORY 9 .5%

CATEGORY 10 .5%

CATEGORY 11. No restriction

[topofmurrayhill]

Oh yes, I understand there are always different ways of approaching things. Here the supplier is trying to give guidance to the customer in a simple and straightforward way.

I was taking a stab at implementing the IRFA standard in the technically correct way as far as I could tell from their documents, just to see how it would come out.

Either way is actually equally simple for the soaper. I showed you how I got my answer and they don't, but both of them come down to a ppo recommendation. The supplier says 2.7 g ppo and my calculation days 3 g ppo. Theirs is more conservative, which is a cushion against less conventional recipes. But mine is arguably conservative enough, so some might be interested to know that in a typical recipe you can use a little more than the supplier says and still conform to the standard. Everyone has their way of doing things, so soaper's choice.

It gets trickier when you are using multiple oils with different concentrations of eugenol. In that case, the supplier recommendations aren't as straightforward to use, but I think it's possible. Can't fiddle with it right this moment.

[TallTayl]

It gets trickier when you are using multiple oils with different concentrations of eugenol. In that case, the supplier recommendations aren't as straightforward to use, but I think it's possible. Can't fiddle with it right this moment.

This is the very most important thing in a nutshell. I have been tossing around the idea of writing a calculator to help make these complex calculations simpler. The way IFRA works is backward, you have to know the irritant to calculate your total limits in a blend. I would like to do it the other way around and list the whole oil with a summary showing all the components in a nifty table. Eugenol is just one of many potential irritants to limit. With the hoards of people into "all natural essential oils" for everything the need sure is there!

I think we have all cringed a bit when reading that people use x% of a low usage rate essence from one vendor and a similar essence from another in the same batch to "get around" the limitations. As if, some how, those two don't add together red hot cinnamon bits is not how i generally like to start my day

[Guest OldGlory]

Honestly, for an entry- midlevel soaper, it's TMI, lol. Not saying it's not important, just too much information to absorb and attempt to figure out. Sounds like your calculator could be useful TallTayl.