General
Are there any harsh chemicals in your products? Why does it matter if I use a store boughten soap or a handmade soap? What is the difference between Essential Oils and Fragrance Oils? Do you use Essential Oils or Fragrance Oils in your soaps? Do you use Animal Fat in your products? How long does it take to make a batch of soap? What ingredients do you use in your soaps and what are their essential qualities that they add to the soap? How many bars of soap can you make at one time? Where are you located? What is soap? Do you make all of your soaps by yourself?
Are there any harsh chemicals in your products?
Answer:
Yes and no. The reason I say that is because "lye" is one of the main ingredients which before it saponifies it is a harsh chemical. So through our thorough process of making soap, we mix the lye & water mixture with the fat mixture which this process is called saponification. This is a chemical process in which lye and fats are transformed into soap, leaving no lye behind. You can be assured that our soaps are properly cured, lye-free and gentle to your skin by the time we put them on the shelves for sale.
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Why does it matter if I use a store boughten soap or a handmade soap?
It matters a lot because your skin is the largest organ in your body and it is used as a defense mechanism against outside impurities and it helps to maintain your body temperature.
Most commercial skin care products contain many unnecessary chemical additives can be unhealthy and get absorbed into your skin every time you use them which can also compromise your immune system over time by damaging the Acid Mantle of your skin.
In addition, most commercial soaps have the glycerin removed from them and use them in products such as lotions, which you buy because your skin is so dry. In contrast, using handcrafted cold processed soap, helps ensure your skin is lavished with ample moisturizer and nutrients as you wash. Handcrafted soaps also give you the benefit of naturally formed glycerin, as well as all the other nutrients added to each recipe without all the harmful chemicals added.
Cold processed soaps are also much kinder to our environment than commercial soaps which contain harsh detergents. Our soaps are also made with no animal fats, to ensure no animal cruelty has to be performed to make our product.
What is the difference between Essential Oils and Fragrance Oils?
Essential Oils are derived directly from plants usually via steam distillation. They hav no synthetitic components, and come from a single plant. Fragrance Oils contain synthetically produced components, and may consist of multiple fragrances blended together to make the desired scent; alternatively multiple Essential Oils may be blended together and referred to as a Fragrance Oil. If you are seeking the homeopathic benefits of oils, you should use only Essential Oil blends, because the synthetic scents would of course not contain the natural properties from the plants.
Do you use Essential Oils or Fragrance Oils in your soaps?
Majority of our scents are used with fragrance oils. The reason being is with the essential oil, there is also a little larger price tag on a lot of the essential oils and we would not be able to carry such a variety of scents as we do becasue they are not produced as an Essential Oil. for instance, I found a place where a bottle of rose essential oil costs about $800.00 a bottle. (Our soap is good but I don't see other people seeing it as $800.00 worth - good!)
Do you use Animal Fat in your products?
No, all of our oils are vegetable based oils.
How long does it take to make a batch of soap?
Cold process soap takes about 4 weeks due to the curing time needed. This is required so that you eliminate all the lye from the mixture, and to properly harden the bar.
What ingredients do you use in your soaps and what are their essential qualities that they add to the soap?
Olive Oil: Is the predominant oil in our soaps. It is mild, and has been used on skin for thousands of years. Olive Oil helps the skin attract and retain moisture without interferring with natural functions - it lets your skin breathe. It helps keep your skin soft, supple, and younger looking.
Coconut Oil: This makes a hard bar of soap with a creamy lather.
Palm Oil: The makes a mild, hard bar of soap with excellent cleaning properties.
Shea Butter: This is extracted from the nut of the African Karite tree, and has been used for centuries to help dry or aging skin. It is emollient and therapeutic and helps heal skin that is damaged or cracked. It helps reduce scars, and can also help bruises and soreness. Shea Butter protects the skin against the damaging effects of the sun and repairs cellular degeneration. It is high in unsaponifiables, which means it has a lot of goodies that don't react with lye during the soapmaking process. The extra oils are available in the soap to nourish your skin.
Castor Oil: This makes a great lather. It also provides conditioning properties, and helps hold moisture in the skin.
Lye and distilled water: This is needed to make the saponification process happen without the lye there is no cold processed soap. This is what also helps to produce the natural glycerin that cold processed soap makes. Unlike, commercial bars where most of them actually take the natural glycerin out and put it in lotion or other moisturizing products.Fragrance Oil and/or Essential Oils: To give the lovely different aromas which many also have therapeutic quality also, such as relaxing, stimulating, calming and many more more.Exfoliants: Not all of our bars contain exfoliants. Some of the exfoliants to name in our soaps are coffee grounds, ground oatmeal, chamomile, lavender, and calendula petals. Exfoliants allow to remove dead skin cells from the face or body.
How many bars of soap can you make at one time?
I usually make two - 8 lb batches at one time, which one batch contains 40 bars of one scent.
Where are you located?
We are located in Allenton, Wisconsin (just north of Milwaukee).
What is soap?
Chemically speaking, soap is the sodium (or potassium) salt of a fatty acid. When a fatty acid (fats such as olive oil, coconut oil, etc) is mixed with an alkali (a substance that corrodes, such as lye) the fat splits into 2 parts - fatty acid and lye. the sodium part joins with the fatty acid to become soap. This process is known as saponification. You can not make soap of any kind if you do not have lye in it. However, once the chemical reaction takes place they lye is not longer present in its alkaline state. It is now made into a wonderful, luxurius bar of handmade soap.
Do you make all of your soaps by yourself?
Yes, I make all of the soaps from scratch, sometimes I have a little help from my husband or my mother who doesn't know what to do with herself anymore.