Organic Soap and Your Daily Choice

Organic Soap and Your Daily Choice

 

Good old fashion soap.  In general, soap is good and keeps us all clean, right?  But not all soaps are created equal. Your skin can feel the difference between our handmade organic soap and mass produced commercial soap. Here is how we make each soap and a few basic rules when choosing your soap.

Board and Batten organic soap:

Using the “cold-process” method, our soaps are made by combining a “super-fatted” blend of organic oils with coconut milk and lye. Superfatting increases moisturizing and emollient qualities in the soaps. Using a low burner, we start by heating the oils and cocoa butter. In a separate pot, frozen coconut milk is combined with lye and constantly stirred while the chemical reaction naturally creates heat. Once both containers reach 120 degrees they are combined, cooled, essential oils are added and poured into molds. The beautiful creations are then left to cure for six to eight weeks.

Mass produced bars:

Even when the label says “all-natural” check the ingredients. Mass produced soaps can be guilty of three things.

  1. They remove the naturally occurring glycerin because it is more valuable sold separately. This leaves room for chemical additives and detergents.
  2. Additional Chemicals. Large companies do not have six to eight weeks to allow for natural curing, so they add additional chemicals to speed up the process.
  3. Synthetic Fragrance. Any scent is possible when it is synthetic (fresh cut grass, papaya sunset, bay breeze). Even “unscented” soaps can contain perfume. Synthetic fragrance is consistent and inexpensive; however it can be irritating to the skin.

Rules to follow when choosing soap:

  • Find products with ingredients that sound like plant names.
  • Don’t buy products containing tallow or tallowate. This is big companies code name for animal fat.
  • Stay away from ingredients like: tetrasodium edta, etidronate, propylene glycol,  sulfates, or perfume.

Ingredients listed should look like this:

Cocos Nucifera (coconut) milk, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter*, Olea Europaea (Olive) Oil*,Hordeum vulgare (barley grass)*, Triticum aestivum (wheat grass)*, Lavandula angustifolia (lavender), Syzygium aromaticum (clove) oil

*indicates organic

A long list of unrecognizable ingredients can dry out your skin and eventually be swept down the drain to do further damage to our waterways, fish, and environment. So, although it may be a simple soap, we use it daily and the impacts can be long lasting.  Choose wisely my friends!

 

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