Why Handmade Soap
Why handmade soap? What's the difference? Why is it better?
Here you will find those answers!
Handmade soap starts with all natural oils, oils that are good enough to eat! If it's good enough to ingest, you bet it's good enough for the largest organ of your body, your skin.
My handmade soaps start with olive oil, coconut oil, palm and/or lard. From there I add other oils including castor oil, soybean oil, aloe vera oil and various butters such as cocoa, shea, and even hemp.
These natural oils and butters when saponified (the chemical reaction that makes soap, more on this later) create natural glycerin. Glycerin is a humectant that draws moisture from the air to your body, keeping you moisturized naturally.
Each oil and butter used in my handmade soap carry specific qualities that produce a great bar of soap for the perfect balance of cleansing and natural moisturizing. I also use goat's milk and various other liquids in my soaps for various properties in the finished product. Goat's milk contains alpha hydroxy acids, vitamins and minerals and the fat and sugar from the milk are boosters as well. Sugar is a great lather booster while the fat is a natural moisturizer.
Commercials soap are full of detergents, which strip the body of natural oils and leave your body dry and most often itchy. If you read the bars in the store aisles, most now read beauty bar or deodorant bar and fall under FDA rules as cosmetics, not soap.
By definition soap is the combination of fatty acids (oils) and lye (sodium hydroxide) to create saponification. Saponification is the process of which fat is turned into soap by combining it with lye. After saponification completes, usually within a few days of combining the two, you have soap. Properly made soap leaves no active lye in the finished product.