EO Blends for Soap from 1904

Back around the turn of the (last) century, synthetic fragrances were just making their debut. Soapmaking manuals and books for the time still gave recipes for scent blending based on essential oils.

My Manual of Toilet Soap-Making by Dr. C. Deite lists a number of scent blends for what were “traditional” toilet soaps at the time.

Here are a few that could be duplicated using the essential oils we have generally available to us now.

The amounts given in the book are for scenting a soap batch using 50 kilos of oil; I’ve adjusted them down so the amounts shown below are for a soap batch containing 5 kilos (11 pounds) of oil. The names of the soaps are as given in the book.

Standard Soap (White)

11 gr ginger-grass oil
8 gr caraway oil
8 gr lavender oil
8 gr thymene

Standard Soap (Orange)

17.5 gr cassia oil
17.5 gr citronella oil

Alpine Flower Soap

10 gr oil of lemons
7.5 gr lavender oil
7.5 gr peppermint oil
6 gr sage oil
6 gr rosemary oil
3 gr cinnamon oil

Alpine Bouquet Soap

10 gr oil of lemons
8 gr lavender oil
8 gr peppermint oil
8 gr sage oil
6 gr rosemary oil
4 gr thyme oil

They all sound great, don’t they?

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