The last time I shot a gun was a couple of decades back as a teenaged air cadet. I’d like to make some “joke” soap that smells like that just-fired-rifle odor. Would adding gunpowder to a soap base (just like if one was making any of their own fancy soaps) add that odor? I’ve never smelled raw gunpowder that’s outside of a shell or bullet, so don’t really know what it smells like (if anything).
Guidance?
Remind me never to wash my hands at your place.
Look to sulfur compounds. I don’t know if potassium compounds have any distinctive smell.
Or at least not to dry them by the fire.
Well, “gunpowder” is sort of vague. Most modern (post 1900) cartridge ammunition uses smokeless powder. Muzzle-loaders use black powder, but even a lot of those users are using black powder substitute.
In any case, none of this stuff is particularly strong smelling in my experience at all, especially in it’s unfired state. I have several containers of Unique and Bullseye powder (smokeless powder) that I use for reloading and I don’t see how it could be used to add an “odor” to something.
From personal experience (having handled both smokeless and black powder), gunpowder has very little smell.
I always thought the smell of gunpowder was the smell of things after the gun had fired. Burnt gunpowder was the smell not the powder itself.
Sulfur dioxide gas is the primary smelly component of burnt gunpowder. It’s pretty reactive stuff, so will probably turn into something else fairly quickly if you add it to soap.
Especially if you’re going to be taking a flight in the near future.
Don’t ask me how I know this but gunpowder added to the soap won’t give a gunpowder smell to your soap. What you really want is the residue of burnt gunpowder. In the case of black powder you won’t need very much to get that trace-rotten-eggs smell all us muzzleloaders know and love but with smokeless it is tons harder. The result of just burning the powder in an open pan doesn’t have the same “nose” quality as it does burned down a barrel but you would need to clean a couple hundred guns to get enough residue to give you a good batch.
(if you flash black powder in a pan or such be sure to do it outside and use a very very long match. This ain’t Hollywood and the stuff burns tall and FAST)
I think it’s safe to call this one asked and answered. Thanks all for your input! Decision: no making of gunpowder soap.
The smell I most associate with gunpowder seems to be a nitrate smell, not a sulfur-based smell. Or at least, I’ve smelled similar things that had nitrates but not sulfur in them.
As I tell school children when I demonstrate firing my flintlock rifle, “Gunpowder is made of three very common ingredients–which I’m not going to tell you. . .”
One of them, though, is sulfur. That’s the smelly part.
Black powder does not smell the same as burnt black powder, but in any case it should not be added to anything someone may strike.
I haven’t smelled other gunpowder varieties.
Wait, there is one unanswered question: How was this supposed to be a ‘joke’ soap?
I think you’re on to something. The entrance to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico smells like bat guano and also has a slight gunpowdery smell to it.
So maybe the OP can try to procure artificial old guano scent? 
Smokekess powder will sometimes have a vaguely ether-like odor of which one can catch a whiff when opening a cannister of powder or an ammo can. Different formulations have different aromas when fired, but most of them smell something like ammonia to me.
Blackpowder doesn’t smell like much of anything to me in its unburnt state but, as stated above, blackpowder smoke does have a pronounced rotten egg note to it from the sulfur.
I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning. It smells like… fun.
You’re safe, as long as they aren’t Star Trek TOS fans.
I always though the smell associated with gunpowder was burned cordite.