Essential oils:
- Plant based.
- Not so much variety.
- Expensive.
- Essential oils can have effects on a person, intended or unintended.
- Scents in soap do not last as long as fragrance oils. Citrus EO seem to fade especially fast.
- Do not use cinnamon oil.
- You do not need to dilute essential oils with a carrier oil if you use them in melt and pour.
Fragrance oils:
- Synthetic.
- Lots of variety.
- Less expensive.
- Scents in soap tend to last longer than essential oils.
Notes:
- Only use soap safe and skin safe scent oils.
- Any oil containing vanilla or vanillin needs either a vanilla stabiliser or a vanilla stable base to keep the soap from turning brown. You could also make your soap a color where more brown wouldn't hurt or be noticed at all.
- Do not use cinnamon oil as that is an irritant.
- The manufacturer should give you a maximum safe usage rate. For the soap itself the maximum is about 1 flat teaspoon of combined liquids/butters/oils (excluding alcohol) per pound/500g of soap base. Therefore your maximum usage rate in soap should be the lesser amount of these two.