First Encounter with Vanilla Oleoresin 20X

If you are a soap maker you would know most of the time we use vanilla fragrance, which is fake and synthetically created in a lab to imitate the natural scent, for our soaping creation.  Why?  You might ask if you are not a soap maker.  It is because natural vanilla extract does not survive saponification.  But, I'm talking about an expensive concentrate, 20X means distilled to have 20 times the strength compared to regular extract.  I'm excited to get a hold of this as this is not cheap!  Before I can put my nose up to an actual bottle of this all I knew was that people have been bragging about how warm and yummy it smells like and exactly like the real extract you would use to bake.  Well, I'm not a baker, growing up in Taiwan as a Chinese means not costumed to using oven, why bake when there's a bakery on almost every few blocks?!  Naturally I had no idea what a real vanilla extract would smell like, all I knew about vanilla was the synthetic imitation.  And this, does not smell like the fake vanilla I've known in my entire life!  Is that good or bad?!  Anyway, it is very brown, very thick, and would not mix with any essential oil or fragrance oil, in other words, not oil soluble.  Since this still contains lot of vanillin, it'll oxidize and brown the soap still.  This is my all essential oil version of Spiced Orange Cream, a blend of sweet orange 15X, vanilla oleoresin 20X, cassia, fennel, and benzoin.

I purposely left the top unscented so it can stay as white as possible.

Some said if there's a lot of vanillin the browning effect will bleed over and eventually brown the unscented portion.  Well, it has been more than 4 weeks now and I'm proud to say it didn't at all!

By the way, the brown tiny speckles are the banana seeds, I used fresh banana together with butter milk for this yummy creation!