What is natural soap made of?
The first distinction of a natural soap is its ingredients. Soap by definition is a mix of oils and fats with lye. And natural soap should contain only natural fragrances (essential oils) and natural colouring. So these are the ingredients of a natural soap:
- Oil. All soap is made from some kind of fat through the process of saponification. Natural soaps should use unrefined oils
- Lye. To create saponification process, you need to add to the oil a strong alcali (sodium or potassium hydroxide). This will turn oils into fatty acid salts and glycerine, which is exactly what soap is.
- Essential oils. This step is optional. Essential oils come from plant material and are completely natural, they can be used to give fragrance to the soap.
What natural soaps should not contain?
As important as the ingredients of natural soap is what they do not contain. A natural soap should be free from:
- detergents
- synthetic preservatives
- artificial fragrances or coloring
- synthetic ingredients
Most of the soap you purchase today is a commercially manufactured mix of synthetic chemicals. It is not natural and is not even really “soap”, it is mostly disguised detergent, which a result strips off natural oils from our skin and causes it to dry. As a result you need to aply moisturizers every time after the shower. It is a vicious cycle. Natural soaps on the contrary are gentle and moisturising for your skin.