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Dear Frugal Upstate,
I found some pineapple essential body oil that I really like,do you think it would be safe to sample it in my homemade liquid detergent? I purchase it at a Muslim store near my home.
Thank you!
Elise
Thanks for your question! I’m glad you’ve taken the plunge to making your own homemade detergent–what a money saver eh? As for your question, I’m a bit leery of adding anything that’s an “oil” to my homemade detergent-after all, aren’t we trying to remove oils?
The fact that you refer to it as “essential body oil” is also a red flag for me-essential oils are typically very concentrated and not meant to be applied directly to the skin. I’m suspicious that something labeled “Body Oil” is actually a carrier oil infused with an essential oil for the scent-and then we are back to the “why add oil to the clothes you are removing oil from” argument.
Personally I like my homemade laundry detergent being scent free since I’m a migraines sufferer. All this is a long way to say I have no real life experience in adding essential oils.
However, adding scent has come up before in a reader’s question where we discussed making sure you have true essential oils and how much to add.  Make sure to check out the comments-there is some great info in there from my brilliant readers!
Good luck!
Jenn @ Frugal Upstate
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I agree — never add oil to a detergent, since the point of detergent is to remove oils.
However, if you want the scent of the oils, you could soak the essential body oil into some porous wood and keep that in your dresser drawer … a small amount of the scent will come off on your clothes, though not too much to be overpowering.
I, too, would shy away from adding oil to laundry detergent. However, this question reminded me of a possible alternative. When I was little, I had a copy of the American Girl’s Handybook. The Handybook (which has lots of really interesting activities and crafts!) includes instructions in its botany section on how to infuse alcohol with scent. Maybe you could make some scented alcohol to add to your detergent (the instructions I remember were for rose scent, but I’m sure you could adapt it).