The Lowdown On The Suds..................

How's it happen? When you mix fats and/or oils with a lye solution (sodium hydroxide and water) you get a chemical reaction that produces soap. You can't have soap without lye! But-----by the time you get the soap there is no more lye in it (It's an awesome process). If the ingredients are measured correctly and the chemical reaction is complete (and that's my job), the lye has all gone through the chemical process and the end result is soap and glycerin ( Beautiful body loving glycerin). The soap-making process naturally produces glycerin as a by-product (actually about 25 % of the final product is naturally-occurring glycerin) which is what makes handmade soap so wonderful for your skin.

What's the difference between homemade soap and the stuff you buy in the store? Actually much of what you see in the store is not soap at all but a detergent or a petroleum product. YUCK! Manufacturers cannot call it soap unless it is produced as explained above, so many of them call their product "beauty bar" or "cleansing bar." Even the ones that are truly soap will often dry your skin because, in the soap-making process, the commercial manufacturers skim off the naturally-occurring glycerin and use it in their more expensive skin-care products since that is more profitable for them. The result is that the very element you need to soften and soothe your skin has been removed. In handmade soap, it's all still there.

Now, why was does everyone still have nightmares about Granny's soap...
Because Granny,Mamaw, Nanny and Aunt Pearl probably all made their lye from ashes and they had no way to determine the strength of the lye (no chemistry classes to set through), which meant you could either have to little lye and end up with a soft bar and could possibly cause it to go rancid...Or you had to much lye and it set you butt on fire...They also used lard....Times have changed!!!.Now, I use Coconut Oil, Olive Oil and Shea Butter (just to name a few)...
If you have an allergic reaction to a store bought bar of soap don't fret...It's probably not the "soap" your allergic to but one of the many detergents, petroleum oils, preservatives or artificial ingredients that thrown in..Still not convinced!

Dove Soap (Which by the way isn't even called soap, it's called a beauty bar) (I used this religiously for years). The list of ingredients are mind blowing!

  alilamont: The Dove white bar is made of sodium cocoyl isethionate, stearic acid, coconut acid, sodium tallowate, water, sodium isethionate, sodium stearate, cocamidopropyl betaine, sodium cocoate or palm kernelate, fragrance, sodium chloride, tetrasodium EDTA, trisodium etidronate, BHT, titanium dioxide, and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate   



Want a plainer bar! Here's the ingredients for a good ole bar of Ivory Soap...
New varieties of Ivory soap contain altered ingredients, such as in "Simply Ivory" (or "simplement ivory"): sodium tallowate and/or sodium palmate, water, sodium cocoate or sodium palm kernelate, glycerin, sodium chloride, fragrance, one or more of the following: coconut acid, palm kernel acid, tallow acid or palm acid and tetrasodium EDTA.




Now for a homemade bar of soap...
Coconut Oil, Olive Oil, Castor Oil, Distilled Water, Lye
A simple recipe and you can come up with that most amazing good for you bars!