Why Use Homemade Soap Instead of Soap From the Store?

 Homemade Luxury Soap

Why buy homemade soap if you can just purchase the soap at the store for much cheaper?  Well, most so-called soaps at the store are synthetic detergent bars or "beauty bars" and are full of harsh chemicals that strip your skin of their natural oils, leaving it itchy and dry.  Then you need lotion and other products to fix the problem created by a harsh soap in the first place.  A lot of the big name soap companies out there try to get you to believe their soaps are safe and natural for your skin, but if you read the list of ingredients, you'll see it's a whole different story.

To make real soap, you only need 3 ingredients: lye, water, and a fat (oils, butters, etc.) which will leave you with soap that has it's natural glycerin left intact.  Commercial soap makers remove most of the glycerin from their soaps and sell it to be used in lotions and other beauty products.  It's a great financial move for them, but not good for the safety of the customer.  Then they add synthetic chemicals to make up for their inferior and harsh product to make it lather more and moisturize, etc.  You can look up most any ingredient of concern, to find out the safety of it by going to the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Database and reading more about the potential hazards.  Here is a list of some of the ingredients from a popular soap company that is known for supposedly being mild and great for sensitive skin and what most people think of when they think of natural soap at the store.

This is what EWG says about some of them:

Cocamidopropyl Betaine - A synthetic surfactant used to control viscosity and boost foaming and has been associated with irritation and allergic contact dermatitis.

Tetrasodium EDTA - A chelating agent that is an organ system toxin and enhances the absorption of all the other chemicals into your body.

Tallow - Rendered beef fat. May cause eczema and blackheads and is a cheap source of fat to make soap.  There is typically no way to know the quality or source of the tallow being used, unless it's rendered from the soap makers own cows,  and isn't vegan friendly.

Sodium Lauroyl Isethionate - A mild synthetic detergent, used for cleansing, emulsification and degreasing. It may dry or irritate skin, especially sensitive skin.

Sodium Isethionate -A synthetic detergent which creates dense lather.

Stearic Acid - Fat from cows and sheep and from dogs and cats euthanized in animal shelters, etc. Most often refers to a fatty substance taken from the stomachs of pigs. Can be harsh and irritating to the skin and not vegan friendly.

Lauric Acid - Fatty acid used as an emulsifier in soaps.

Sodium Stearate - Fatty acid.

Sodium Cocoate - Saponified coconut oil.

Sodium Palm Kernelate - Saponified palm kernel oil.

There are several other less harmful ingredients as well, but more ingredients nonetheless.  Does this sound safe and mild to you?  In contrast, we use high quality vegetable oils and unrefined shea butter, making our soaps vegan friendly and excellent for your skin.

Here is our basic soap ingredients list for our olive oil and shea butter soaps:

Olive oil - Moisturizing and mild conditioning properties help to keep skin soft and supple.

Palm Oil - Makes for a nice and hard long-lasting bar with a rich and smooth creamy lather.

Coconut Oil - Wonderful cleansing ability with large, fluffy bubbles.

Unrefined Raw Shea Butter - Makes the lather silky smooth, and leaves your skin amazingly soft.

Sodium Hydroxide (lye - required for making soap)

Distilled Water - necessary to dissolve the lye

It's very important to not only have high quality ingredients, but a balanced percentage of ingredients used in the recipe.  We believe our recipe to make a perfectly balanced soap that has a creamy, long-lasting fluffy lather, that will leave your skin soft and nourished, not dry.  The more you use our olive oil and shea butter soaps, the better your skin feels over time and you too may get hooked on them as many have already.   If you have any questions about any of our products just Contact Us .

To read more about our olive oil soaps , you can click here: Our Homemade Olive Oil and Shea Butter Soaps

Melissa

(soap maker)

www.gingergreysoaps.com