Part of the joy of making soap is the opportunity to teach my customers about the healthy benefits of using natural handmade soaps.
It is good for you and good for the environment.
I hear the same questions and concerns over and over again. I hope to address the majority of them here. Please feel free to contact me with any additional concerns. I am with my natural products from conception to your hands.
During the great war, women were forced into the factories to support the family while the men went over seas to fight for our freedom and make this country great. In my generation, and I'm in my mid-50's, both parents have had to work outside the home to meet basic needs. Many of the skills and crafts of previous generations have been lost and that include natural soap making.
Current generations have been educated by mass media and Madison Avenues advertising campaigns. Television has been a formative part of their lives.
The days of the family farm and truly organic living has been replaced by giant corporations and supermarkets. You can buy your tires and junk food at the same place whose name ends in "mart". Out sourcing in the norm. Products Made in the USA are difficult to find.
Remember when Wa-Mart was equated with made in the USA? That is not the case anymore. They are the largest corporation importing goods from China and outsourcing our work force to China, leaving more Americans unemployed.
Fortunately there is a strong green movement in this country. More companies are thinking beyond the pabulum of mass media and big pharma.
Here are some of the frequently asked questions that I routinely hear at my marketplace.
Q: You have such great sales! How should I store my soap when I buy it in quantity?
A. I have people tell me that they put my soap in a closet or drawer and it makes everything smell really nice, kind of like an air freshener. This is fine. Plastic is the enemy.
Keep it out of direct sunlight and store in a cool, dry location. Remember, my soap is meant to be used. If you want your surrounding to have great fragrance, try some of our home fragrance products.
I would recommend using the soap within one year of purchase for optimum freshness and fragrance, but they will last much longer when kept in optimum conditions.
Remember, we do not use preservative in our natural soaps. They do not sit on a warehouse shelf for extended periods of time. Use and enjoy them daily.
When stored under improper conditions the soaps can develop orange spots due to the oxidation of the oils. Read more about this here.
Q: How long does a soap bar last?
A: That is a tough one to answer and I say that it is dependent on the user. If you take good care of your soap, and let it dry out between uses, our 4-5 ounce bar will last around a month as an all over body-care product.
If you only use it on your face, obviously it will last longer. If you have a family using it several times a day, less would be the answer.
Keeping it out of the direct spray of your shower is important.
Make a trip to your local hardware store and buy one of those inexpensive suction cup soap holders and place it in your shower high and out-of-the way of a direct water spray. At the sink, try our soap decks to keep it dry between uses.
Q: I have really dry and sensitive skin. Which is the best soap for me?
A: All of my soaps and body washes are considered hypoallergenic and moisturizing. Simply using a soap that is rich in natural glycerin will help with dry, sensitive skin.
Start by looking at possible allergies. If you have celiac disease, don't use something with oatmeal or wheat protein. Keep it gluten-free.
If you have no allergy to fragrance, than pick a fragrance that you love.
If you are a vegan, eliminate any soap with goat milk or emu oil.
Otherwise, just enjoy them all. We test every soap. One of our testers has eczema and it has to be good for his skin or it doesn't make it to market.
Q: Do your lip balms and lotions contain or have a SPF value?
A: Both my lip balms and lotions contain a high percentage of shea butter. Shea butter unto itself has an SPF of around 4.
By FDA regulations, the addition of a SPF agent to a product places it in the over-the-counter drug category. I follow all the CFTA and FDA regulations that apply to my cosmetics.
Q: What is cold processed soap?
A: The term cold process means that no external heat is used during the soap-making process. We melt our solid oils, add the liquid oils, then combine with the water/Naoh mix, fragrance, and pour into the molds. The soap is removed from the mold after twenty-four hours, cut, and placed on a curing rack for approximately four weeks. It can take up forty-eight hours for the saponification to become complete.
Cure time is necessary to remove the excess liquid for longer-lasting soap and to bring out the mildness our skin has come to enjoy.
Q: What is hot process soap?
A: In this type of process, heat is added and the soap and it is cooked, going through several stages before becoming soap. At the end of the cook, the soap is cooled, fragrance is added and it is glopped into a mold. Once it is cooled, it can be cut and used. No cure time is necessary but from personal experience, I still feel that a couple of weeks on the curing rack will improve the quality and gentleness of the soap.
Q: Why would you choose to use the cold process over the hot process?
A: This is partially a personal preference. I like the creamy quality that you get from the cold process. It also allows the use of some pretty colorants to make interesting swirls.
Not all fragrances work well in the cold process. They can cause the soap batch to seize and generally be problematic. That is when the hot process comes into play. From the cost end, you use less fragrance in hot process soap so it can be more economical.
Q: What is your favorite oil?
A: Wow, that’s a hard one. I’m getting closer to sixty and my skin needs some extra TLC. I find that my skin loves a soap made with shea butter. Shea butter is such a great oil. It has a high number of "unsaponifiables which lends creamy, rich, and moisturizing qualities to our soap.
I always use olive oil as my base oil for its gentleness. It also adds hardness to the soap making it last longer.
I also use other ingredients for their own unique qualities including hempseed, avocado, and goat milk. My skin loves goat milk.
Q. Is there lye in your soap?
A. First of all, let’s get out of the middle ages and use proper terminology. Sodium hydroxide is the emulsifying agent used to make soap.
Naoh + H2O + fatty acids = salt and glycerin. The olive oil is changed to sodium olivate and glycerin. The palm oil is changed to sodium palmate and glycerin and so on and so forth.
Making soap is much like making a cake which starts with flour, sugar, eggs, and oil. In the end you don’t have those individual components, you have cake. The same is true with soap.
A properly made moisturizing soap is made using a digital scale. Oil, also know as essential fatty acids, have a number assigned to it which gives us an exact measurement for the amount of sodium hydroxide needed to convert the oil to soap.
The soap maker will calculate with some oil left over. This is called super-fatting. In general, we leave 5-8% excess oil in handmade soap.
The chemical reaction is called saponification.
Q: What is Glycerin?
A: Glycerin is a humectant. A humectant draws moisture from the air and holds it in suspension on your skin.
The glycerin is responsible for the incredibly soft feel of your skin when using a handmade soap.
One molecule of glycerin is created for every three molecules of soap which means that handcrafted soap is 25% glycerin! It is no wonder, given the expense of glycerin, that the big boys take this out of their soap and put it in their lotions. They can sell it to you twice that way. Those big companies are pretty smart.
Q: Are all soaps made with sodium hydroxide?
A: If it is “true soap" the answer is yes.
There is another type called melt & pour soap or glycerin soap. It is generally transparent and can be quite pretty. The alcohol in the soap is responsible for the transparency. It can also cause drying.
The quality is dependant on where the base was purchased. You can buy M & P at your local hobby stores but in general it very expensive and poor in quality.
Q: I want to make soap, where do I start?
A: There are many reliable resources available for soap-making. Start at your local library, check out a few books, grab a cup of coffee, and read.
I’ve also included instructional page on this website for a quick start up.
Q: What books do you recommend for making my own soap?
A: There are many good books available at your local library or book seller.
- Soap: Making It, Enjoying It by Ann Bramson
- The Natural Soap Book by Susan Miller Cavitch
- The Soap Maker's Companion by Susan Miller Cavitch
- The Complete Soapmaker: Tips, Techniques & Recipes for Luxurious Handmade Soaps by Norma Coney
- Transparent Soapmaking: A Complete Guide to Making Natural See Through Soap by Catherine Failor
There are also some wonderful sites on the web. I was lucky and found the good ones when I first started. Feel free to contact me for input on some good places to go. Not all the information is accurate or good just because it is published.
There is a huge error in an early edition of The Soap Maker's Companion. It has been corrected in the last edition. It is regarding adding the sodium hydroxide and water. Think snow on the mountain. Add the Naoh to the water ONLY!
I would also suggest going to Google.com and doing a search on soap making. It's amazing how much information is out there! There are always a multitude of questions that I am asked by my loyal customers, family, and friends.
If you have a special question that is not addressed elsewhere on the site, please contact me.
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