Vanilla Whipped Shea Butter is, hands down, our most popular body butter. And it’s not even close. It sells at twice the rate of our second most popular butter – Sandalwood & Bergamot Blended Butter. Yeh, it’s that serious.
But it might surprise you that, from a formulation perspective, Vanilla Shea is incredibly challenging. Why? Because it’s scented with food-grade vanilla extract – which has an alcohol base. (Vanilla beans are steeped in alcohol to extract their flavor.) Finding a way around that pungent alcohol smell was challenging when we first released Vanilla Shea nine years ago.
So when customers requested a Vanilla Body Oil, I knew it wouldn’t be easy.
And it wasn’t…
Oils are far less dense than shea butter. So the alcohol overtones of the extract can come through very *very* strong. I won’t bore you with the details. Just know that most days, after experimenting to make a Vanilla Oil, I looked like this;
Finally, after months of tweaking, I figured out a process that infused a strong vanilla scent into the base oils WITHOUT the alcohol smell coming through. I poured myself a test bottle and used it for a week.
I LOVED it! My skin was deeply moisturized, and I smelled like vanilla for hours (yum!) I knew I was finally ready to launch.
The launch did not go off without a hitch. While pouring some 1 oz bottles I accidentally put a too-high percentage of extract in, and the alcohol smell returned. I emptied and re-poured the bottles, but at that point I’d already shipped a few so… I just had to hope they were somehow okay.
Once the first batch of Vanilla Oil was shipped, I waited for feedback.
This is live footage of me after I got the notification that the first review of Vanilla Oil was in.
But thankfully, the review, from Sharon, was a positive one!
“My fav, so far! The vanilla scent is so nice, and it’s very nourishing. Glad I stocked up on a couple.”
Then, a few days later, a second review came in;
“The best! Smells like cake and super moisturizing.”
Phew! It was an ordeal, but I am so happy that we can offer a delicious, naturally-scented, synthetic-free Vanilla Body Oil!
~Leila
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