“What, exactly, is handmade soap and how is it better than the stuff in stores?”

We get asked this often from friends, family, fellow vendors, that random person behind us in the grocery store checkout line, at shows or just about anywhere. Yes, we hear this question a LOT!

In order to answer this, we need to define what soap actually is. “Soap” is a legal term defined by the FDA as a product that is…

primarily composed of alkali salts of fatty acids
AND it is those alkali salts that are the primary contributor to cleaning
AND it is intended to only clean.

This is not a clear definition to most people since they probably don’t know what alkali salts and fatty acids are. And to complicate matters further, we tend to loosely call products that don’t contain any soap in them as “soap,” just as all facial tissue is called “Kleenex.” I think we can clear this up quickly, though, so let’s start.

First, most handmade soap is made by combining various plant and/or animal oils (fats) with a solution of water and lye (the alkali). These oils all have various fatty acids in them that tend to give the soap different attributes like hardness, or “slip,” or amount of lather. When various oils are blended with the water and lye solution, it frees the fatty acids to combine with the lye and eventually reform the fatty acids into fatty salts. This is the ‘science part’ of our motto that “WHEN ART AND SCIENCE MEET MAGIC HAPPENS.”

Another way to explain it may be that soaps are made from natural ingredients, such as plant oils and butters (avocado oil, coconut oil, “vegetable oil,” shea butter, etc.) or acids derived from animal fat (tallow or lard). Synthetic detergents on the other hand, are man-made chemical derivatives.

All you need to really know is that handmade soaps are better for you and your health than most of the store bought products on the market for many reasons. The primary reason is because most of those products that you buy in a grocery store or pharmacy aren’t actually soap, but are the synthetic detergents I just mentioned above. Most of the ingredients in these detergents are not bad. They actually clean extremely well. That is where the problems begin however…most clean TOO WELL.

That’s right. Synthetic detergents clean too well. They strip too much of the natural protective oil that our body produces and that is why many of us feel dry and itchy after a shower, usually making us run to use our favorite hand or body lotion. Synthetic detergents also contain chemicals that are added for various other reasons.

Pthalates make the fragrance stick to your skin so you smell like your soap. They have been linked to cancer, childbirth defects and other issues.
Parabens are often added as preservatives in store cleansers and many other cosmetic products. They have been linked to infertility, breast cancer and hormone imbalances.
Sulfates are often added to store cleansers to aid in cleansing. Most skin types do not do well with that level of oil stripping.

Most handmade soaps and related products are made without these potentially harmful additives, ours included. Our family uses all of our products so we wouldn’t put these additives in anything that we use on our children or ourselves for so many reasons!

Many people don’t realize that synthetic detergents have also been linked to negative impacts on the environment as well. At the 2015 National Climate Change Conference in Paris, different actions were agreed by 195 nations in favor of a more sustainable planet with the motto, “long live the planet, long live humanity, long live life itself.” This is just the tip of the iceberg in the knowledge of the effects of the use of synthetic detergents to the environment and will hopefully spark you to search for sustainable and alternative methods of cleansing that will not harm that blue marble that we live on.

But, we digress. The final part of the definition of soap is the real tricky part for handmade soap makers. Soap makers can only claim that their product cleans. That’s it. Now, we also know that many ingredients that we add to our soaps can and do have other beneficial effects as well, for instance, certain clays are known to draw impurities out of the skin or certain butters are known to be “nourishing” to the skin. However, we can NEVER claim that our soaps have these effects!

If you think about the process of saponification or soap making, there is no way to guarantee that the raw items contained in the soap will have the same attributes at the end of the process because there were chemical changes to them. And legally, these claims would change our soap from a cleanser to the category of a cosmetic or drug. These latter two items have much stricter regulations, but will allow the maker to claim exfoliating effects, moisturizing effects, and even the ability to improve eczema among others.

So, soap is a cleanser made from fats combined with lye. It is safer and less damaging to your skin and also comes with delightful fragrances and colors that just make bathing more enjoyable. We will continue to only use quality ingredients that are safe for you and the environment. We will never use bad ingredients for any reason. We value our customers, our planet and ourselves too much.

What is soap?

All Natural?