What ingredients do you use?
Oils/Fats
Our main base oils are olive, coconut, sustainable palm and castor. We often include other lighter oils such as grapeseed, sweet almond, sunflower, avocado and safflower oils. Lard and tallow make wonderfully rich, bubbly bars of soap! We utilize plant-based as well as animal-derived fats and oils in our formulations.
Lye
All soaps require lye to create the chemical reaction that results in soap. We utilize both Potassium Hydroxide (KOH) and Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) in our soaps depending on the desired result - soft/liquid soap (KOH) or hard/bar soap (NaOH). The lye used is categorized as food-grade, and can also be used for making pretzels, olive preparation, and curing fish.
Butters and Specialty Oils
Soaps clean the skin. This cleaning process strips the skin of dirt and oils. That resulting “squeaky clean” feeling could be a sign of dry skin. Some enjoy this feeling while others do not. For those who prefer softer, moisturized skin after washing, we produce soaps just for you! Our luxury soap products incorporate butters like kokum, shea, and mango. We also include specialty oils such as babassu, argan, jojoba, and meadowfoam seed.
Additives
Beer. In my soap? Why, yes. That’s what I said! People have been rinsing their hair with beer for decades to moisturize and repair damaged hair. Including beer in our soaps produces a full moisturizing lather. Hops, an ingredient in beer, contains skin softening amino acids which can soothe irritated and inflamed skin. The brewer’s yeast in beer acts as an antibacterial agent, great for combating acne. Beer also contains vitamin B and other essential vitamins which further moisturize the skin. Beer soaps also have a mild, natural scent reducing the need for additional fragrances, if desired.
Oatmeal/Colloidal Oatmeal. Oatmeal, and its natural oil coat, moisturize, protect and gently cleanse, while correcting the pH of itchy or inflamed skin. When added to baths, colloidal oatmeal doesn't clump; it spreads out and melts into a cloudy treatment that can relieve skin irritations.
Botanicals/Salts/Sugars. Many of these ingredients are added as exfoliates, but mainly we add them just because they are pretty.
Why are my soaps not ready right away?
Many of our listings start out as Coming Soon. This means the product has been produced, but for the best possible bar of handmade soap, the soap must cure for 4 to 6 weeks. This curing process allows for the pH of the soap to lower (creating a milder bar of soap) as well as evaporation of the excess water left over from the saponification process. The evaporation results in a harder, longer-lasting bar. Since handmade soaps do not contain the extra chemicals and detergents found in store-bought soaps, this curing process is extremely important to producing the best possible bar of soap for our customers.
Are your products 'all natural', 'chemical-free' or 'organic'?
All Natural
While these terms are used regularly across many industries, in the soap and cosmetic industry 'all natural' is not a regulated term. Therefore, anyone can say their products are all natural. There's no set definition of what determines if a product or ingredient would fall under that term. Cyanide is natural, for example, but you don't want to see it listed as an ingredient in your body care products!
Chemical Free
We strive to use ingredients that are easily identified, and the purpose of including them in our recipes is discernable. Many consider 'chemical-free' to be the same as 'all natural'. Everything in the world is made up of chemicals (Water = H2O = Hydrogen Dioxide).
The human body is approximately 99% comprised of just six elements: Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium and phosphorus. Another five elements make up about 0.85% of the remaining mass: sulfur, potassium, sodium, chlorine and magnesium*.
As handmade product creators, we do have to use chemicals. At its most basic, soap is broken down into two components - the fats/oils and the lye (sodium hydroxide). Without these two things you do not have true soap.
This industry is robust and our access to less harmful alternatives and the availability of proper education on ingredients and their usage rates allows us to make educated decisions and to control what we use in our products. Our goals are not mass production and for our products to last through an apocalypse! Our goals are to eliminate as many of the junk additives (found in most commercial products) that we can and ensure what we use is beneficial to our skin.
Organic
Contrary to the labels mentioned above, “organic” is a regulated term. To label your products as organic you have to be able to prove that your suppliers are providing you with documentation that what they sell to you is all organic. Major suppliers that carry thousands of items truly may not bother with the certification process. This can prevent you from labeling your products as organic if even the smallest amount of a non-organic product is used in your formulas. As a small business that is conscious of why consumers choose to purchase organic products, we do try to patronize businesses that share our values both in consumer safety and environmental sustainability.
*Wikipedia