[CoaJuniorFormulator]

Saponification has a habit of eating through fragrance long after you think it should have finished.  As Syl has mentioned good storage is half the battle, though soap benefits from the ability to ‘breath’ a little - keep it airtight at your peril.

In the UK we are permitted to add up to 3% fragrance IFRA allowing (It’s a bit more complicated than that but as you are technically re-batching I suppose that would be the cleanest description), maybe some additional fragrance from off the bat would help.  Also watch the flash point of your fragrances - let the soap cool as much as you dare before adding.

Florals hold better than citrus as a rule in soap - May-Chang and Lemongrass hold best if you do need a citrus and essential oils fade faster than fragrance oils.  

Adding your fragrance to some clay first generally helps a little- I think because clay will initially absorb the oil but would rather absorb the water in the soap and so naturally releases the fragrance slowly as it picks up water instead. It’s not the miracle worker people hope it will be though. 

Best of luck!  

[CoaJuniorFormulator]

Thank you all! I felt rather guilty for having a bit of a wtf moment publicly! Very much appreciate your honestly though! And your experience @Perry I wonder if there was a bit of a right of passage getting trusted with ‘the aftershave’ batch?

For context this is not the only odd situation in this company and the person who asked me to do this was newer than me (staff turnover is keen).

I feel I represented it honestly - it was indeed 5g of a single product for customer prodding at a single site. Full sized products were in the building. Anyway.

The other formulator on my team is currently expected to have 5 separate high end emulsions/gels formulated from scratch and put forward for PET in under 2 weeks, which to me seems teeth grittingly tight.  So I think I just needed to know if it was personal or an industry standard. I get the feeling it’s a bit of both- though not personally at me but the concept of formulating in general within the company. 

@MarkBroussard  I promise I will keep that in mind! I’m not as much as a diva as my post made out I hope but in general quite easy to work with! 

And @Pharma thank you 😄 that is the most tactful approach to this imaginable - next time!