I only discovered natural cold process soap a couple of years ago. Prior to that I had eczema on my hands and was using prescribed steroid creams. I didn't like using steroids but my doctor said nothing else could help. Then I discovered a recipe for natural soap with honey and as I started using it my eczema disappeared.
Adding honey to the soap makes it even better than just natural soap. Honey is a natural antiseptic and an emollient. Now my favourite soap is my own Natural Soap with Honey that I hand make in small batches. That's how I spent a couple of hours this morning.
The soap making process is fairly simple, but can be dangerous. Soap is produced by a chemical reaction between a lye solution with fats and oils. The lye solutions is a strong alkali and will burn if any gets on the skin - I wear an apron, gloves and safety goggles.
Look at the ingredients of a commercial soap and you will often see tallowate. This is soap made from tallow - animal fat. It's cheap and smells unpleasant. Cheap is what's important to commercial soap manufactures. They want to make a profit. Tallow doesn't make a good soap and needs to be deodorized and then an artificial perfume added. Some things added to soap are known to be carcinogenic; some are know to dry and damage skin. Soap manufacturers make soaps that sell, so they look good, they smell good, they're often heavily advertised - it doesn't actually make them very good.
The fats and oils I use both feel and smell good before I start the soap making process. It's exactly the same as cooking - if you use quality raw ingredients you get a quality end product. Of course, the commercial manufacturer is more interested in profit so will use cheaper alternatives. Hide it and tell the customer there's something good about the product and it will sell. I use relatively few ingredients in my soap. There is no need to add anything to alter the smell, texture or colour.
Rant over about ingredients. The process is different too. Natural soap is difficult to mill and roll. Commercial soap makers use a continuous process, raw ingredients poured in at one end and soap rolled out at the end. Natural soap would stick to the machinery and clog it. This is because when soap is made from lye and fats, glycerine is also produced. Glycerine is very moisturising and can be used by people with sensitive skins, but it makes the soap too sticky for the commercial process. To remove this problem, commercial soap manufactures remove the glycerine and sell it separately.
The resulting soap is also easier to mould and takes artificial colour and perfume better. Genuine natural cold process soap doesn't colour well. The so-called hand made soaps that are brightly coloured and moulded are actually commercial soaps that have been hand coloured and moulded. It's called melt and pour soap. Some of the results look really lovely, but the soap they're made from is as commercially made as any in the supermarket.
So, back to what I was doing this morning. All I've really done is started the process. I now have two boxes wrapped in towels in which the process of soap making is taking place. The towels keep the heat in that's generated and make the process quicker. Tomorrow I'll unwrap them and cut them into bars. After time to cure they'll be wrapped and labelled.
After discovering just how good the soap is I wanted other people to try it. The regulations about selling soap are quite stringent, as they should be, and it was quite daunting going through to process to ensure my soap was legal to sell. Since I started selling it the feedback I've received tells me that other people feel the same about my soap as I do. The vast majority of sales are to people who have bought it before or who have had it recommended to them by friends and family. Only last week I was approached in a restaurant by someone who wanted to know if I was the person who sold the soap that got rid of the dry patched on her friend's skin. Could I bring some in for her next time I was there?
Soap. It's used everyday. How's yours been made? What's in it? Is it actually damaging your skin?
Soap available via www.BeeswaxHandmade.co.uk or www.etsy.com/shop/BeeswaxHandmade
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