Fragrance oil haul

Today I received two packages of fragrance oils, one from E-essentials and one The Soap Kitchen. From EE I got “Vanilla”, “Watermelon” and “Plum” and from TSK “Shea buttermilk”, “Cotton flower”, “Grapefruit Sorbet” and “Chocolate fragrance”. So I got 7 FOs in total to play and experiment with.

When opening the packages I was thrilled because there was no leakage which tends to happen with these types of bottles. I’ve had the unpleasant experience of opening a package only to discovering that inside is an oily mess waiting to be cleaned up. Fortunately this was not the case in either of these packages. So far I like what I see. Then came the real test, the sniffing! Let’s start with the ones from E-essentials.

Vanilla: At first I wasn’t sure I got the right fragrance but after a few minutes I realized that it is indeed vanilla. It’s a very subtle vanilla though with a hint of perfume. It will probably smell great in products, but it didn’t impress me straight out of the bottle. I like my vanilla to be isolated, strong and almost overpowering.

Plum: I rarely smell or eat plums so I’m not quite sure how accurate the fragrance is, but it smells good nonetheless. It smells like summer with hints of citrus and sweetness. I’d also say it smells a bit like those types of candies that are covered in sugar and very sour when eaten. It’s definitely a good choice for summer products.

Watermelon: I’m glad I took a chance on this one because it is absolutely lovely. It smells exactly like watermelons and best of all there’s no artificial perfume smelling notes (even though the entire fragrance oil is all artificial). Good job EE on this one!

Now onto the FOs from TSK. Firstly I just want to note that all the information like batch number and name of the FOs have been handwritten on the bottles. Maybe not a big deal to everyone but to me it seemed kind of amateurish. But hey I shouldn’t judge, at least not until I’ve smelled them!

Chocolate fragrance: It definitely smells like chocolate but it isn’t too sweet or too raw. It’s hard to describe but it’s a pleasant smell.

Grapefruit sorbet: This one smells a bit off to me. I can smell the grapefruit, but it is overshadowed by another scent which I can only describe as the soft drink schweppes. It’s extremely sharp and I’m not too fond of that but I don’t hate it. It’s ok, nothing more nothing less.

Cotton flower: One of two scents that I don’t like. It smells like floral soap that elderly women use. That’s why I tend to avoid floral scents because my brain has decided that that smell belongs to the elderly. I’m aware that isn’t true, but when you’re mind has connected two things it’s hard to break that connection no matter how rational you’re trying to be.

Shea buttermilk: I’m not sure if Shea buttermilk is a thing and if it’s supposed to smell like this but it’s absolutely horrible.  It smells like a bad designer perfume that’s going to get discontinued immediately.  No wait, it actually smells like someone walked into a perfumery and mixed three random perfumes together. A very unfortunate choice, but what can you do?

All in all a decent “haul” (if you can call it that) with some hits and misses. I’m definitely going to order more FOs from E-essentials in the future especially since their shipping price is so good. Not that impressed with Soap Kitchen’s FOs but they have lot of other raw materials to play with!