Homemade soap is the healthiest and best option for you and your family. I want you to take a look at a typical store-bought bar of “soap” that you have in your house or when you’re at the store. Look closely at the label. Do you see the word “soap” anywhere? Chances are, you won’t. Companies will label these as “beauty cream bar”, “deodorizing bar”, or something similar. That’s because these products are not really soap. They are a blend of chemicals, detergents, and surfactants with ingredients that are impossible to pronounce. Why? Because chemicals are cheaper. Homemade soap, on the other hand, is the best choice for your skin and your health. To further explain what is going on, let me first tell you what soap is and how it is made.
What the Heck is Soap?
Lye and fat are all that is needed to make soap. Excavations of Babylonian settlements show that humans were making soap as early as 2800 B.C. They would use fats or vegetable oils and mix them with wood ashes and water. The ashes contained potassium hydroxide, a form of lye. I’m not going to delve too deeply into the world of chemistry, so bear with me.
A fat molecule consists of 3 fatty acids attached to a glycerol backbone. When sodium or potassium hydroxide (lye) react with the fat molecule, the fatty acids are stripped from the glycerol and form soap salts, or simply soap. This process is called saponification. The soap then mixes with the glycerin to provide a naturally cleansing, moisturizing bar of soap. Now, making soap like this isn’t the cheapest method. To cut corners, manufacturers have replaced oils and butters with detergents and artificial chemicals. Companies started taking out the glycerol from their soap because they could make more money selling it to cosmetic companies.
Why do you want glycerol in your soap?
Glycerol is a humectant, which means it attracts and holds moisture from the air. Therefore, it helps to keep your skin moisturized and prevent it from drying out. Handmade soap contains all of the glycerin produced from the saponification process, so that you retain all of its skin-loving benefits. Since the glycerin in homemade soap isn’t removed, it isn’t necessary to add any artificial detergents or surfactants. What you then get is an all natural way to clean and moisturize your skin.
The Good and the Ugly
So, to sum up, handcrafted, all natural soap will usually contain only:
- the soap salts (soap)
- glycerin (formed naturally)
- Essential Oils
Commercial “soap” usually contains:
- Sodium Laurel Sulfate (SLS) – a detergent, surfactant, and foaming agent.
- known to be a skin and eye irritant
- implicated in the cause of canker sores
- used as a degreaser => strips oils and moisture from your skin!
- many other concerns including endocrine disruption, developmental & reproductive toxicity
- Triclosan/Triclocarban/Tetrasodium EDTA/chloroxylenol
- antimicrobial agents
- endocrine/hormone disruption
- carcinogenic (cancer)
- lowers immune response
- the EPA registered many of these as pesticides
- Dioxane
- known carcinogen
- toxic to the brain, liver, and kidneys
- Formaldehyde
- Known carcinogen
- irritant to the skin, eyes, nose, and throat
- banned for cosmetic uses in other countries
- Parabens
- hormone disruption
- carcinogen
- may cause neurological problems
- PEG-6, PEG-8, PEG-40, etc….
- very toxic
- carcinogen
- possible skin and kidney toxicity
Not So Pretty…..
Even the coloring of your soap isn’t safe! Commercial soaps almost exclusively use D&C and FD&C colorants and dyes. Because many of these are made from “coal tar” produced from the byproducts of coal processing, most of them have been found to be carcinogenic. Additionally, coal tar usually contains heavy metals. Handmade soap, on the other hand, uses natural ingredients such as herbal infusions, oxides, and micas to impart color and designs in a soap.
Something Smells Funny
Handcrafted soap isn’t only great for your skin. It can produce benefits from aromatherapy due to the Essential Oils that are used to scent them. You may have heard that mint has an energizing scent, or lavender is a very calming and relaxing scent. Commercial soap, however, simply lists their scent as “Fragrance” which can be a large number of ingredients including parabens and phthalates. We mentioned parabens earlier, which are carcinogentic. Phthalates are mainly used in plastics to add strength and flexibility. The CDC has said that phthalates have been found to cause reproductive problems in lab animals. Further reports from other studies have linked phthalates to many health problems including asthma, ADHD, Breast Cancer, type II Diabetes, and on and on. Women and young children have been cited as most affected by this chemical. This is probably the scariest chemical in commercial soap. Any and all soap produced by Harry’s Honey Pot that contains “Fragrance” instead of Essential Oils is PHTHALATE FREE. I would never expose myself nor my family to those chemicals and neither should you.
In Conclusion
Homemade soaps use premium oils and, therefore, no artificial chemicals are needed to give you a cleansing, bubbly bar of soap. They can come in a wide variety of scents not found in commercial soaps, and the Essential Oils have amazing Aromatherapy benefits. A quality homemade soap uses natural colorants to make beautiful patterns that are great for gifts. It’s clear that homemade soap is the winner when it comes to quality and safety.
The chemicals used by the big manufacturers are cheap ways to make their bars of soap harder, foam more, and “clean”. But, “you get what you pay for” is true for many things and in this case it is evident that homemade soap is a much more safer, gentler, moisturizing, natural way to keep your sensitive skin clean and moisturized.
Shop here for your handcrafted soaps.
I hope I helped demonstrate how important it is to read the labels on the products you choose for you and your family.
Please leave any questions or comments below.
Bee Safe.