The ever elusive COCONUT...

Where, oh where has my coconut scent gone

Where, oh where could it be???

 

My goodness, coconut has got to be the most difficult scents to achieve in cold process soap.  Notice, you don't see too many straight coconut scented soaps floating around the net.  For me, this has been an extreme source of frustration for years!  I've tried them form pretty much every major supplier and while I love my suppliers for their other amazing fragrance oils, I have yet to truly be happy with a coconut scent from any of them.

 

Every summer I get a request for a straight coconut soap and every year, I have to say that it's not possible.  Coconut fragrances just can't make it through the rigors of cold process soap.  This year however, I decided to try and tackle the ever elusive coconut.

 

 

To start, I made a 3.lb batch of coconut scented hot process soap.  I cut the oaf into bars and once they were firm enough, shredded them with a cheese shredder (sorry, no picture of that step).

 

Finally, I made a regular size batch of soap and added my coconut fragrance.  Mixed to a nice thick trace and added the shredded soap.  My thought here was that since hot process soap can retain the scent, adding the strongly scented hp coconut soap shreds to the main batch would allow the fragrance to carry through without interference from the cp method.

 

 

I added a bit of cocoa powder to the base to create the brown and TD to the top since I knew it was going to go beige on me.  So far (2 1/2 weeks into the cure)  the HP shreds still have their scent.  The rest...meh.  Hubby and I are both getting a mild chocolate scent but not much of anything else.  This was going to be called "coconut cream" but at this point the bars have more of a light toasty coconut type scent.  Most likely there will be a name change coming.

 

 

I'm not sure how I feel about this one guys.  I'll do an update later.  A few cp soaper reviews stated that this particular fragrance oil improves with cure and smells like coconut milk once you actually get the bar into the shower. I keep a chunk on my nightstand and sniff it constantly. The scent is definitely present it's just not screaming coconut to my nose. 

Customer feedback will determine whether I give this a go again or not.

Till next time ♥

 

UPDATE - almost 4 weeks into the cure, the scent has bounced back.  It's like a coconut milk scent.  I don't detect cocoa anymore and am very happy with the results!

FYI: soap-makers, this is Natures Garden Creamy Coconut but I'm sure the process will work with most other suppliers as well ;0)