Friday, February 22, 2013

Journey to the Perfect Pink Sugar

The first time I smelled a small piece of soap (by other) made with Pink Sugar fragrance I really didn't like it at all.  It was way too strong and sickening sweet like I could get hunted down by bees if I walk out of my house wearing it.  I've never smelled the real Pink Sugar perfume by Aquolina, can't really say if it was a dead on duplicate.  But if it was, that would be the worst first impression!  This scent is widely popular that forced me to rethink about my decision of not trying to soap it last year.  This fragrance has one very annoying flaws, it discolors soap to a dark yucky brown and suds brown in the shower too.  My road to search for the perfect Pink Sugar fragrance duplication starts!

I looked and looked online, there are tons of suppliers sell this specific fragrance duplication, almost every bath & body product supplier sells a version of it or more.  They all however have the same warning about discoloration.  Then I heard of one that would not discolor to brown so immediately I bought some to try.
This is how it looked like just poured:
  This is what it ended up with after, yellowish:
It didn't go dark brown, but is yellow really better than brown?!  Instead of looking like poopy color it's pee color!  And the sweet cotton candy scent faded big time.  If you are a soaper you would know the exact reason why our soap turns brown when soaping with sweet candy or bakery scents.  For none soapers, it's the vanillin in the fragrance that causes the browning.  Vanillin is the synthetic scent for sweet creamy vanilla.  Most of the vanilla related fragrance have vanillin in it more or less.  Obviously this version has much less vanillin that's why it didn't discolor deep but that's the same reason it didn't smell as good as it can be.  So I moved on.
I decidec to soap the typical browning Pink Sugar, this is photo just poured:
I used browning Pink Sugar for the majority batch and none browning version for the top (I had to add some whitening or I would end up with unpleasant pee yellow).  3 weeks later, wow~
This smells strong but not sickening strong, sweet but with musky undertone.  Go take a closer look and stare at one of the cut photos you will see the pink balls that I made separately (without any fragrance) have this brown edge glow.  This is how strong the vanillin can be!  It's invading anything and everything around it!  I had originally rolled these pink balls in sparkling gold mica before embedding them in the soap.  The vanillin ate the mica and went right into the pink balls like poison!  Oh well, at least it smells damn good!
If you want one, it is listed on my Etsy online shop: Pink Sugar Soap

9 comments:

  1. Wow, what an amazing soap again! Looks very pretty and delicious ;)

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  2. Pink sugar is one of my favorite scents. I would love to make cp soap with it but
    have yet to find that perfect one that does not fade to a waxy smell after it has
    been cured.

    I do not mind brown soaps, so I do not mind when some of my soaps turn
    to brown, but it would be nice to have a "PRETTY PINK" color some times
    when making a cp soap instead of brown.

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  3. I love your Soaps!!! Wonderful brown Soap!!!

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  4. I guess a non-discoloring Pink Sugar FO sounds too good to be true. You did a great job working with the discoloration with the regular Pink Sugar, though - the brown and pink go together well, and I love those round embeds! Congrats on another gorgeous soap!

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  5. Your brown soap ist beautiful, the pink and brown fits perfectly.

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  6. What a great solution...I love the way this soap came out Emily! I love the brown ring around the pink embeds too, what a cool effect!

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  7. Both looks great, but I'm so happy to hear you were able to take advantage of the discoloring effect to get a gorgeous bar of soap. =)

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  8. What a great idea - it looks yummie, spacy, noble and like a lot of fun!
    Wonderful work!

    Impressed greetings from Cologne!
    Britta

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  9. I don't usually like brown CP soap either, but this is a lovely brown and pink combo - I hope it smells as good as it looks!

    Cheryl
    ThisIsMyFarm.com

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