Let's talk a bit about soap...imagine that!
What is the difference between typical store bought soap (I'm not talking about natural soaps sold in health food stores) and homemade soap, or factory soaps that are made the old fashioned way? Home crafted, small batch crafted, artisan, old fashioned soaps have all their natural qualities left in~many store bought soaps do not. One major example is glycerin. Some store bought soaps have the glycerin removed during production and sold separately. Why does that matter? Glycerin is a natural bi-product of the saponification process (we'll get to that in a moment) and is part of what makes soap gentle and moisturizing! Hmmmm...I wonder why we seem to need so much lotion...but that's another topic.
What is saponification? It is a term referring to the chemical reaction that takes place between fats (oils, butters) and sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide, both commonly referred to as lye. The two together, as commonly happens in chemical reactions, become altogether something new than what was started with. I personally believe that the term "soap" is a short version of the term, "saponification", but I haven't found a reference to that as yet. Note that all the letters in the word soap, are in the first 5 letters of saponification. Ok, I've typed that word enough. I digress.
Back to the difference between many store bought soaps, and homemade...hardness. Home crafted soap is usually not as hard as store bought, in part, again because of the removal of glycerin from store bought. Home crafted soaps really need to not be left in a puddle of water; they will disintegrate faster. And texture--the texture and feel of homemade soap--in my mind, delightful comparatively. It's like comparing a fresh flower to a silk one; they can both be lovely, but the silk can never quite approach the delicacy and beauty of the real bloom. There is a luxuriousness, a real feel to the texture of handcrafted soap that cannot be duplicated by a machine.
Is there lye in it? There seems to be a general concern that there is lye in handcrafted soap. Well, yes...and no. Lye is used to create the soap, along with fats. Because they chemically combine and create something entirely new, there is technically and physically no lye in the soap by the end of the saponification process. Ok, I had to type it again. This brings us to curing time. There are several types of processes to create soap, a topic for another day. For our purposes here, most of our soap is made by the cold process method. This method requires a curing time after the soap is prepared, which provides time not only for the lye to completely saponify with the oils, and therefore no longer be either lye or caustic, but also time for the soap to dry and harden, becoming gentle and for the lather capabilities to fully develop. The curing time is generally 4-6 weeks. However, this is simply the bare minimum for the soap to become ready to use. Typically, the longer soap is left to cure, the better is becomes: harder, and gentler. All that said, soap cannot be made without lye. And lye is not in your final soap bar.
Detergents are another matter entirely, and they will not be found in our products. Detergents are not soap. They are synthetic chemicals used to enhance or create properties such as lather and are often petroleum products. They have been around since WWII when fats and oils were needed for the war effort, and soap became hard to come by stateside and beyond. History is not my strength, but I did find that tidbit interesting. You put gasoline in your car...do you want it in your cleaning products? Or on your body? Sorry, had to ask. More next time...
Recommendations for further learning:
Youtube: Videos demonstrating the hundreds of years old method for making Aleppo soap--simply search "Aleppo soap"
www.cleaninginstitute.org on Soaps & Detergents where I just learned the possible origin of the word "soap!"
