Facts about Handmade Soap

When soap is made by hand, the naturally occurring ingredient glycerin is left completely in the bar of soap.  None of it is removed as in other styles of soaps.  In order to make the extremely hard French Milled soaps, the glycerin must be removed or the soap would be too soft.  More glycerin may be added later, but never at the original level of the soap making process.  Companies may extract the glycerin through a variety of methods and then add a percentage back to say it contains glycerin. 

Also, it is our belief that ALL handcrafted cold and hot  process soap is "glycerin soap".  Not simply the clear transparent soap with added glycerin.  Transparency does not make a glycerin soap.  On average - and it changes with the recipe, made from scratch, handcrafted soap contains around 10% naturally retained glycerin.

ALL BAR SOAP IS MADE WITH LYE

(or something similar and just as caustic)

If it is made correctly, there is NO LYE remaining in the final bar of soap.  This includes every major, popular cosmetic soap and every made from scratch, handcrafted soap.  Soap is made by adding water and oils together, along with something to form them into soap.  That ingredient is usually Sodium Hydroxide which is lye.  For liquid soaps, it is Potassium Hydroxide.  Even if soap is made as truly old fashion soap was with burned wood or plant leave ashes, it still forms a caustic solution - using soap made from wood ashes (potash)  is not a gentler soap, if it's made incorrectly, remember Grandma's lye soap stories?

What produces the naturally forming glycerin that is retained in handcrafted soap?  The chemical reaction called saponification.

Water (or milks, herbal teas) + Fat (oils) + Lye = Soap with glycerin retained.

The soap maker must calculate the correct amount of lye for the specific oils used in each recipe.  This controls the amount of "super-fat" or remaining oil in a soap to make it moisturizing to the skin.  If too much lye is used, the bar may be hard and crumbly.  If too little, the bar becomes soft and  will become rancid faster.

Lye must be used to make the soap, but there should never be any remaining lye in the final bar to hurt the skin.  Certain "country" style lye soaps, the hard white bars that some people remember turning their hands red and burn, have residual lye in them.  Lye soap made that way works well for poison ivy and oak and small bug bites. We recommend MoSoap.com for finding that style of lye soap.  The soap maker should always mention your are purchasing strong lye soap.  The reason people think of "lye soap" as being harsh is because grandma didn't have a digital scale to measure ingredients perfectly and was many times making her own lye.  It is a difficult, time consuming process and being able to acutely gauge lye strength can be difficult.  Errors were made at times with this process.

LEARN HOW TO READ THE INGREDIENTS

Just because the ingredients do not include the word lye - doesn't mean it wasn't used.  Soap ingredients can be listed three ways.  Each example is the same bar of soap. 

• Ingredients: Water, Olive Oil, Beef Fat and Lye

• Saponified Oils of Olive and Tallow

• Ingredients: Sodium Olivate and Sodium Tallowate  (Lye is a salt which is sodium).

Make certain you purchase soap from a soap maker or company that discloses the list of ingredients on the package.  Soap is sometimes considered a cosmetic and must be labeled by FDA standards and sometimes it is not - and no ingredients are required.  If the soap just says, Vegetable Glycerin Soap - there are other ingredients used to make it than just glycerin and you are not being told - ASK!

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS 100% GLYCERIN SOAP

Sorry, it's true - there is not one on the market today.  Now, the maker added 100% glycerin to the soap and you have no idea how much always, but the soap is not made of 100% glycerin. Read the ingredients! If is was, it would be the MOST disgusting non-lathering, mushy soap one could imagine - I know because I make it every time I teach a class on natural care products to prove my point.