Soap

I sell two kinds of soap. Natural soap made via the cold process, and melt and pour soap. I’ve been making soap since 2015, and selling it professionally since 2016.

Natural Cold Pressed Soap: I use coconut oil and olive oil and in all of my cold pressed recipies. Sodium cocoate (and sodium olivate) is produced by hydrolysis of the ester linkages in coconut oil (and olive oil) with sodium hydroxide, a strong base (or alkali). This works with any oil based product, and many soapmakers like to use butters in addition to oils in their creations. The cold press method is an old one, and was traditionally used in the stone age with animal fats and potassium hydroxide from open fires. This involves rendering animal fat in hot water and allowing it to cool and additng it to the potash from the fire. If you want to make soap this way at home, you can use the fat that comes with your roast beef joint. Render it so that it is white, and use sodium hydroxide and water to make your soap. That way, all parts of the animal you purchased are usitised and not just thrown away.

If you prefer a vegan way of traditional soap making, I made this video several years ago so do check it out:

If you want it to be more ‘white’, simply reduce the oil to lye ratio.

The pH of sold pressed soap is around 8.5 – 9.5, planting it firmly as an alkali product, meaning that it can be harsh on sensitive skin. Even with soothing butters it can be a harsh alkali as the butters are chemically altered by sodium hydroxide during the process. Alkali is usually tested when soapmakers send off for their Consumer Product Safety Reports from their chemists.

This comes without plastic packaging as cold pressed soap is best left open and allowed to dry in the air. I store these soaps naked, and place them into paper bags and put the label on the bag at the point of purchase. That way your soap is in the best possible condition when you get it home. To keep it in good condition and make it last longer, it is best left to dry between uses. I find that by cutting a piece off for use and storing the rest away in a cool, dry place means that the bar of soap will last longer.

Melt and Pour Soap

Melt and pour soap has a different chemical makeup, and as a result will need to be stored differently. This means that it need to be wrapped up straight away as it contains added glycerin. Cold press soaps produce natural glycerin as part of the saponification process, but when we make the ment and pour soap we add it in as an ingredient. Glycerin is a natural humectant and draws moisture from the air, so unless it is sealed it will start to collect water in a way that looks like condensation. This is called glycerin dew, and over time the additional water will change the chemistry within the soap. The result in addition to ‘dew’, is that the colours and scents will both change. To prevent this, all melt and pour soaps are shrink wrapped as there is no plastic free alternative that will prevent this. There needs to be an impermeable barrier between the soap and the air.

The upside to melt and pour soap, and the only reason I sell it is because it is much milder and less caustic than cold pressed alternatives and has a pH value of 7.5 – 8.5, which still means it is an alkali, but it is much more neutral than cold pressed soap and less likley to be an irritant as a result. This makes it a good alternative for people with skin complaints.

General Information

All soaps are vegan, cruelty free, alcohol free, SLS free, SLES free, Paraben free and Palm Oil free. Any wax used is soy wax. Although soy wax is not eco, it is a good vegan alternative to bees wax.

All soaps have Cosmetic Product Safety Reports from a chartered chemist, and have a Product Information File.

All products are registered on the UK Cosmetic Notification Portal, and are fully insured.