Fragrance Oils are Doing Weird Things to my Surfactant Products

Added a Fragrance, and the viscosity or the color changed dramatically? It is the most frustrating thing! And there is no real guide to know which will do what. I wanted to address it in a blog post. As a note, I mean fragrance oil and essential oils anytime I talk about fragrance in this post. 

Fragrance and essential oils are made up of many compounds. Some fragrance oil compounds can be water-soluble enough to become part of the micelle and thicken a product. While others can be wholly oil-soluble, change the micelle structure, and thin it out. Vanilla-based fragrance oils have always thinned out, and citrus ones thicken. For example, in this shampoo formula, the lemon tea tree thickened the formula. That is about all I know. It is hard to pinpoint anything because fragrance oil and essential oils are a mixture of chemicals. They vary dramatically in composition. You need to test every fragrance oil out. You can make a basic surfactant sample of water, SLS, salt, and preservative. See the calculations for the active surfactant matter of SLS. 

Calculations:
SLS ASM Calculation:
10/30=0.3333
30*0.3334=10.002
100-(33.34+0.50+3)=63.16  
63.16*2=126.32    
33.34*2=66.6800 
0.5*2=1
Method:
Sanitize all your equipment, containers, and workspace. Gather all your ingredients and make sure that your notebook is set up. In a glass beaker, add all your phase A ingredients. Stir until the ingredients are uniform. Pour into final packaging. Be sure to label and date your latest formulation.
You could also use SLeS as well. 
Testing Fragrances:
Since we built in the fragrance into the formulation. We need to know how we can test it. For a 50g batch that would be:

Calculations:
63.16/2=31.58    
33.34/2=16.67  
0.5/2=0.25 
3/2=1.5
31.58+16.67+0.25=48.5 
48.5 grams base to up to 1.5g base

Let's say you only wanted to add 1% fragrance.
3-1=2
3-2=1
2% base and 1% fragrance, you can alter the total formula but this is a short cut.
2/2=1
1/2=0.5
To get 1% fragrance, weight out 49.5g base and 0.50g fragrance oil.

What about 0.05% fragrance oil?
3-0.05=2.95
2.95/2=1.475
0.05/2=0.025
48.5+1.475=49.975
49.975+0.025=50
To get a 0.05% level of fragrance, weigh out 49.975g base and 0.025g fragrance.

Fixing Batches:
If, after adding the fragrance, your product thins out. You will not be able to thicken it back up with salt. You will have to use a different thickener. Crothix can fix products that have thinned out a lot. It is an ester-based thickener. I am testing out a new, more "natural" one. I will report back if I like it. 
For products that are too thick, you can add more salt, which will decrease the viscosity. It's a tiny amount!


Fragrance and Clarity:
The other weird thing that can happen is that fragrance can affect clarity. Again, you need to test each fragrance oil. Either there is too much fragrance, or your surfactants have difficulty solubilizing them. Sometimes, it resolves itself over a maximum of a week. My suggestion would be to incuse or add a solubilizer next time. Or it is the color of the fragrance oil compound. Some of the compounds are conjugated. They have an altering single bond and a double bond in the structure. Without a whole physical organic chemistry lecture, it will have a color. Retinal, is yellow because it is conjugated. There is nothing wrong or a way to fix it. It is just another consideration.

Related Posts:

• Should you add fragrance?
• How Much Fragrance Should You Add?
• Fragrance Oils and IFRA
• Insight into Solubilizing Fragrance Oil
• Vanilla

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