I’m a big ingredient list reader on products. I like to know what’s in the stuff I am buying and what is going into my body. With all the hype of cancer causing ingredients and by products and what not, I figured I could be a little more responsible in choosing what I buy. Seems like a lot of people are doing this these days. It’s all about being apart of the “green” lifestyle, I suppose.

So, soap…I know that I use a true soap but do you? Some people may not even care if they are using soap or not. That’s cool. It’s their choice. But what about the people who want a more educated choice? We need to arm ourselves with facts and information. I believe that it’s the consumer’s responsibility to read about the ingredients in the products we buy instead of placing the burden upon the government to regulate harmful ingredients used. We cannot expect that the government will always make the best choices for us. We have the ability to protect ourselves and have the power to make a difference with companies that use harsh ingredients by not buying their products. It’s all about choice and knowledge. Did you know that a lot of the stuff we see on shelves of stores are actually made of detergents? Look at the labels. Do you see “beauty bar”? Is there a long list of ingredients that sound like a lot of mumbo jumbo? Are there claims that say this bar will moisturize or beautify your skin?

Let’s clear some stuff up. Common soap ingredients as listed on labels are:
Sodium Palmitate-Palm Oil
Sodium Tallowate-Tallow (Beef, usually)
Sodium Cocoate-Coconut Oil
Sodium Palm Kernelate-Palm Kernel Oil
Glycerin-natural humectant, a vegetable byproduct of soap making process
Water-used as the catalyst for sodium hydroxide
Sodium Lauroyl Isethionate-used as a detergent ingredient and emulsifyer
Stearic Acid-used as a hardening agent
Sodium Isethionate-detergent used to make dense lather
Sodium Stearate-salt of Stearic acid
Cocamidopropyl Betaine-synthetic surfactant derived from coconut oil
Sodium Chloride-salt
Tedtradsodium EDTA-chelating ingredient
Citric Acid-natural preservative used in food and cosmetics
Propylene Glycol-derived from natural gas, used as a humectant

The sodium part of the ingredient listing has to do with the chemical transformation of the oils reacting with the lye making this a salt (sodium) process and the –ate suffix indicates the transformed ingredient. We know what ingredients are, right? Ingredients are defined as substances that make up part of a mixture. Soap doesn’t need to list ingredients if the sole purpose is to clean. Products that claim more than cleaning or say they will cure something are regulated as a cosmetic or a drug.

Common list of ingredients in our soap:
Palm oil, Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Castor Oil, Sweet Almond Oil, Water, Sodium Hydroxide, Essential Oils

And what if it's "soap"?

Soap is a category that needs special explanation. That's because the regulatory definition of "soap" is different from the way in which people commonly use the word. Products that meet the definition of "soap" are exempt from the provisions of the FD&C Act because -- even though Section 201(i)(1) of the act includes "articles...for cleansing" in the definition of a cosmetic -- Section 201(i)(2) excludes soap from the definition of a cosmetic.
How FDA defines "soap"

Not every product marketed as soap meets FDA's definition of the term. FDA interprets the term "soap" to apply only when --

• The bulk of the nonvolatile matter in the product consists of an alkali salt of fatty acids and the product's detergent properties are due to the alkali-fatty acid compounds, and
• The product is labeled, sold, and represented solely as soap [21 CFR 701.20].

If a cleanser does not meet all of these criteria...

If a product intended to cleanse the human body does not meet all the criteria for soap, as listed above, it is either a cosmetic or a drug. For example:

If a product --

• consists of detergents or
• primarily of alkali salts of fatty acids and
• is intended not only for cleansing but also for other cosmetic uses, such as beautifying or moisturizing,

it is regulated as a cosmetic.

If a product --

• consists of detergents or
• primarily of alkali salts of fatty acids and
• is intended not only for cleansing but also to cure, treat, or prevent disease or to affect the structure or any function of the human body,

it is regulated as a drug.

If a product --

• is intended solely for cleansing the human body and
• has the characteristics consumers generally associate with soap,
• does not consist primarily of alkali salts of fatty acids,

it may be identified in labeling as soap, but it is regulated as a cosmetic.

From Natural Ingredient Resource Center- "True Soap" Exception...Natural Soap

The NIRC has made an exception for "True Soap" that fits the following criteria;

• "True Soap" may be labeled as "natural soap" ONLY if the ingredients that go into the soap are lye plus 100% natural ingredients, according to the NIRC Criteria for natural ingredients.
• "True Soap" may be labeled as "natural soap" ONLY if all of the ingredients are listed. We require that "True Soap", labeled as "natural soap", have ingredient labeling in order to help prevent the misuse of the "natural soap" label.
• Soap labeled as "natural soap" may not contain the addition of any synthetic or artificial ingredients including but not limited to artificial colors, synthetic fragrances, man-made vitamins, solvent extracted oils or additional glycerin. 
• Please see the answer to the question: "Is there such a thing as "Natural Soap"?"

For more information about “True Soaps” or “Natural Soaps” please visit: http://www.naturalingredient.org/
 
For more information on FDA information about soap, cosmetics, and drugs, please visit:
www.fda.gov/Cosmetics/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/ucm074201.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After making a few batches of uncolored, unscented soap, we were inspired to make scented, swirled soap. My little hippie soul loves patchouli (who doesn’t?) and since we had already decided that we wanted to color our soaps naturally, we set out to find our first colors. Donnie wanted green and I love purple.

There are all sorts of different greens but I read that Spirulina was very popular. It’s a blue-green algae that smells very oceany. Supposedly, Spirulina does some great stuff for the body, too; it’s sold as a dietary supplement. However, after something reacts with lye, most, if not all, beneficial properties are moot. Spirulina does give a great green color. Right out of the mold though, we weren’t prepared the first time for the seaweed smell. I was very happy as the scent mellowed out and the patchouli came through. It really is an ocean musk!

Now, the Purple Haze was a different story to making it swirly purple with the colorant I chose. Alkanet root is a powder that needs to be infused or steeped in oil. This posed a challenge for me in thinking about the entire soap recipe. With colorants that don’t need to be infused, we just scoop out the amount of raw soap we want and mix the colorant in that and swirl away. I really didn’t understand the whole batch issue until Donnie got nitty gritty with me about saponification values of oils. Saponification value or sap value (S.P.) indicates the amount of sodium hydroxide (for bar soap) or potassium hydroxide (for liquid soap) amount needed to make that particular oil into soap.

My alkanet root was infused only in olive oil and we weren’t mixing it into the entire batch, just for the swirl. We have to calculate the amount of the infused oil for one batch. The purple is deep, dark and hypnotic, not a vibrant jewel purple. My Jeep is actually close to this purple and I love it! So, Purple Haze is actually a soap that is made of 2 different batches of soap that we combine for a whole loaf. This is one of our more time consuming batches because it requires each of us to man a batch of soap and pay attention to our mixture for consistency in mixing and then pouring alternately. It’s a process but the end result is totally awesome as you can see for yourself!

So you must know where the name Purple Haze comes from! The soap just reminds me of dark, smoky swirls of incense burning filling up the air around me with that deep, earthy patchouli. Just heavenly and when you get around to using it yourself, you will know exactly what I mean! I haven’t heard anything but raves about Purple Haze and if it makes you feel the same way, then we’ve accomplished our mission in making it!  As always, don’t be shy to share how you feel!

Awareness: having knowledge or perception of a situation or fact

When Donnie and I decided to get married, we knew that we didn’t want to have the traditional church wedding. Being a sort of non-traditionalists, we started learning about Buddhism. There was something about the teachings of the Buddha that clicked with us, particularly about being mindful and about compassion. In our growth to becoming more productive adults, we started becoming more aware of how we affected everything else around us and how outside influences affected us.

The following passage of The Five Awarenesses were what we recited as our wedding vows. Since getting married wasn’t just about us joining as a union, it was also about our family and friends joining and celebrating our union with everyone. I also wanted to share that since we started our company, being aware of what we put out is very important to us because we hope that our products continue with future generations not out of greed, but of growing concern about the products we use to bring joy and peace of mind to our lives. I share this piece of us with you because I think it enlightens our way of life and what we are setting out to accomplish.

The Five Awarenesses

Students of the Buddha are aware that life is one and that happiness is not an individual matter. By living and practicing awareness, we bring peace and joy to our lives and the lives of those related to us.

The First Awareness
We are aware that all generations of our ancestors 
and all future generations are present within us.

The Second Awareness
We are aware of the expectations that our ancestors, 
our children, and their children have of us.

The Third Awareness
We are aware that our joy, peace, freedom, and harmony are the joy, peace, freedom, 
and harmony of our ancestors, our children, and their children.

The Fourth Awareness
We are aware that understanding is the very foundation of love.

The Fifth Awareness
We are aware that blaming and arguing can never help us and only create a wider gap 
between us; that only understanding, trust, and love can help us change and grow.

Thich Nhat Hanh

After telling everyone about how we got started in making soap in The Plain & Simple Truth, I thought it would be fun to tell you each week a bit about our soaps and how each of them came to be. Sometimes we are struck with an idea for a scent blend or a color blend that we just want to try that has inspired us or someone just asks us to try something out. This was the case of Citrus Scrub.

My brother in law worked as an oil hand awhile back and would come home covered with this oil dirt stuff he called invert. Invert is some nasty stuff! It’s grimy, thick, oily sludge kind of stuff. I wondered how he got it off of his body. When I asked him, he said that the oil guys shower with a popular dish washing liquid. It was the only cleanser they found that got the invert off with a thorough scrubbing with a wash cloth. I was fascinated! Taking a shower with dish washing liquid? Really? I loved using the stuff myself at home in my kitchen, but didn’t think to use it as a shower soap.

I wondered why this dish washing liquid cleaned so well. I know it’s used in oil spills to help clean the animals off and loved that they donated to the cause for each bottle sold. I decided to look up the ingredients online because I found out that ingredients don’t have to put on a label if it falls under “proprietary”. I wasn’t too happy with some of my findings. But then I was even more determined to find a way to make a natural handmade soap that would work for my brother in law that was appropriate for bathing. My husband and I started researching about cleansing oils and other ingredients.

We compiled a list of ingredients known for their cleansing properties. Coconut oil produces very fluffy bubbles in soap, however it can be drying. We offset the drying factor with olive oil, which is moisturizing to the skin. We also use castor oil, which is high in cleansing, bubble making, and moisturizing properties. In addition to their cleaning power, orange and eucalyptus essential oils helped scent this bar for a unisex appeal. For some special additives known to help with removing impurities, we found Fuller’s Earth clay to help absorb that gross invert oil. Fuller’s earth was used hundreds of years ago to remove the oils from sheep’s wool so why not oil from human’s skin? Last but not least, a good scrubbing boost was added with pumice.  And thus, Citrus Scrub was born!

All in all, we succeeded in making a great soap for some heavy duty cleaning!  What we didn’t really expect was that people loved the smell of it so much they wanted to use it for everyday!  We ended up reformulating the soap into a more bath friendly soap that is still called Citrus Scrub and we kept the original soap formula but renamed it Workman’s Scrub. While my brother doesn’t work as an oil hand any more, the soap still gets use from scrubbing away the oil grime from working on cars in the garage. We’re please to hear also from our handy men friends who love the soap and that’s success itself!  

This week starts our first full production week of the year. Last night, we made Purple Haze and Lively Lemongrass, our two most popular soaps so far. I love both of these myself and they are so vastly different. Purple Haze is scented with patchouli essential oil, a very deep, musky scent. Most people associate patchouli to hippies and I think most people who buy it are soothing their inner hippie with it! Lively Lemongrass is crisp and reviving with lemongrass essential oil but mellows out with a down to earth scent blended with cedar wood. Donnie absolutely loves this soap because it reminds him of his childhood days of running through the fields, hence where the description came from. I think a lot of people are going to be very happy to hear that these soaps will soon be back in their showers!

Not only are we ramping production up for regular sales, but our friends Mike & Lizzie of Lazy Meadows Alpacas have opened their store in Muncy this week! We’ll be heading down there later this week to stock the shelves with our wares. We will be officially “in stores”! And we would like to extend a big Congrats to them for making this move. Throughout the year they will be offering spinning classes and other fun activities down at the store so if you have ever been interested in spinning and weaving, they’ll have it! They did so well at the Holiday Store that the idea of being open all year around just appealed to them and we are so grateful to them for extending the invitation to join them at their new store!

Also last night, we were asked to join the Pajama Factory’s show for Valentine’s Day! This will be the first weekend in February and according to my good friend, Casey (from the Graphic Hive), it will be called something like “Factory of Love”.  I think this is a First Friday event. I’ll be getting more details on this. But how exciting! This event will have lots of different vendors for a wide variety of gifting options for that special person! I’ll be thinking of something new for this, maybe like a limited edition scent or soap that is special to the holiday in addition to gift box and basket ideas. Just you wait!

So, after our winter vacation, it’s time to get back to work! We’re gonna be busy busy and we’re thankful for that because it’s all from you! Thanks for the support!

I can’t believe it’s 2011 already! Just as we were getting our groove on with the holiday season and enjoying vacation, the new year has begun! I think this is going to be an absolutely fabulous year! We’ve already had our first few orders and we have put in our own orders for supplies. We’ll be doing some new stuff this year that we cannot wait to try and share with you!

The first thing we are stoked about is liquid soap! I’ve already told you that we plan on formulating hand soap, shower gel, shampoos, and other liquid type soaps at many people’s requests. Personally, I’m excited to use my own laundry detergent! We had been using Soap Nuts and I love them! But my supply has dwindled, so the time has come to make some soap for my laundry.

I’ll be working on some essential oil scent blends. First on my list, is Nag Champa! This is going to be a challenge because it’s a very complex blend and not totally uniform with people who smell it. Since I’m not making an incense I’m not so sure how to get that smoky smell with it when incense is burned. I think that’s one of my favorite things about nag, the burning! I’m also thinking about some kind of floral blend, but not a really frilly blend, something exotic. I do like fresh scents, so I’ll also be keeping that in mind.

I also discovered something so awesome for us! I found a natural preservative! Yay! We use preservative in our lotions and soon in the liquid gel soaps and shampoos. Preservatives are necessary to ensure that mold and bacteria do not grow in our water based products during long shelf lifes of products. Unless you plan on using your supply of lotion and other water based products in a week and keep them in a refrigerator, preservative is needed. This is a safety concern and we want to make products as safe as possible! I’ll be working with the new preservative and our formulas for lotion to ensure consistency in our great lotion. Have no fear! I won’t mess up a good thing.

I kind of slacked off during vacation about posting blogs and updates, so one of my goals is to make sure I post at least one blog (hoping more like 2) a week and several other updates through Twitter and Facebook. I’m reading a bunch of stuff from other soapmakers and articles about random products and ingredients. If I run across anything absolutely fascinating, I’ll be sure to share.

In the meantime, I hope you are thinking about all the wonderful soap you got from us and thinking about when you are getting more! You know where to find us! As always, if you have any questions or comments, don’t be afraid to share!