Fragrance Friday: Lumberjack Fragrance Oil

After choosing Lumberjack Fragrance Oil to feature, I’ve been sniffing the bottle almost obsessively; it’s that good!

From our catalog:

“This scent is really nice. The primary notes are of woods, moss, musk, hyacinth with vanilla, and a tiny bit of lavender. I noticed the musk aroma immediately and felt this was a ‘clean from the shower’ type of scent.”

This fragrance just begs to be put into a bar of soap, so that’s what I will do. As a nod to the wood chips a lumberjack produces as he goes about his trade, I’ll use some soap shreds to add a bit of visual interest to the bar.

Lumberjack Textured Soap

Instructions

If you have never made cold process soap before, please begin by visiting this blog post for some general instructions.

Prepare to soap safely with protective gear including long sleeves, gloves, eye protection, and no distractions.

Weigh oils into a soap bucket and microwave in 30-second bursts until all oils are liquid. Set aside to cool.

Weigh liquid (I’m using water) into a lye-safe container. Weigh lye in a separate container, then carefully pour into water. Stir to dissolve, being careful not to inhale the fumes. Set aside to cool.

Once lye solution and oils have cooled below 100 degrees, slowly pour lye solution into oils and stir with a spoon. Then stick blend using short bursts until soap batter has reached a medium trace. You want the heavier trace so the soap shreds we’ll add next don’t all sink right to the bottom.

Melted oils and lye solution cooling.

Adding the soap shreds (aka wood chips) to the soap batter.

Add sufficient soap shreds to create the textured look of wood chips. I’ll use some brown soap shreds. Stir well.

Pour soap into the mold and texture the top as desired.

If you want to force the soap to go through gel phase, either insulate the mold and place it in a warm spot, or place the soap mold in an oven preheated to the lowest temperature then turned off. Leave overnight.

If you do not want your soap to go through gel phase, just leave it in a cool location. It still may gel in the center, though, depending on how much it heats during the saponification process.

After 24-48 hours, unmold and cut your soap.

Notes

Don’t let your lumberjack smell less than his best. Throw him in the shower with a bar of this Lumberjack scented soap. Both of you will be happier!