Infusing oils?

[SoapDiva]

Hey there,

I'm planning on donating some of my time and effort to make some soap for a local charity. They want to use Sandalwood as the primary scent. I want to go all natural (as do they), and I have access to some native crushed sandalwood, but not the EO unless I want to mortgage my house.

My question, to get the biggest bang for my proverbial buck out of the sandalwood, can I infuse this into one of my main oils, soap it and even add the soaked sandalwood into the mix?

Or, should I just add the crushed sandalwood to the pot and go with that as a primary scent?

Has anyone tried something like this?

Thanks for any guidance you can give.

[CareBear]

mmmmmmm... I wouldn't add the wood to the soap (ouch), and I don't think (tho not 100% sure) that the scent will come through.

Indian sandalwood is endangered, so I wouldn't recommend using that even if you can afford it.

[Carriegsxr6]

I agree with Carebear, the scent would not come through if you infuse it in an oil, nor would it come through if you add it raw to the soap. I would go with an EO, you could use Amyris oil (W.I. Sandalwood) to keep costs down.

[SoapDiva]

It's endangered? Woah. That's no good. The organization that I am donating the soap too does their charity work in Sri Lanka, and the founder can get me crushed sandalwood dirt cheap, she told me that they add it to scrubs in their treatments so I figured that it would be fine in soap as an exfoliant.

Thanks for the input, I really appreciate it! I will also look into that other EO you mentioned.

Back to the drawing board!