When is it not soap?

On April 30th we had our first market for the year. It was an enjoyable event. Always a pleasure meeting new vendors and of course the people that visit our booth. There was one woman in particular that picked up each bar and read the ingredients at the back. Kudos for her! I applaud her for taking an interest as to what goes on her skin.

For our body soaps we follow a basic recipe but what makes one bar different from the next is the additives we use. For example Aloe Vera, Activated Charcoal Coconut Milk or Honey.  There was one ingredient that caught her eye that was present in all of our soaps. And she asked quite simply "What is the purpose of the Sodium Hydroxide?" Yes. We do put on our label Sodium Hydroxide aka Lye. I went on to explain that soap is made by a chemical reaction (Saponification) between Oils and Sodium hydroxide (lye). This is how true soap is made.

Now I can imagine some of you are taking a closer look at your ingredients on your soap at this point and thinking "There is no lye here." Take a closer look.

Some soapmakers do not put sodium hydroxide on their labels because there is no lye in a finished product. That is to say once the chemical action is complete and the lye and oil molecules have combined the end products are soap and glycerin. So the active ingredient sodium hydroxide is no more. So how do they label their products? Read your label. If you see the words saponified oils of  Coconut, Olive, Cocoa butter then yes sodium hydroxide has been used.

Soap made with Coconut Milk and Turmeric

Well my bar doesn't have any saponified oils listed. Maybe not. Does your bar contain any of the following?
Sodium Cocoate - Generic name for Coconut oil mixed with Sodium Hydroxide.
Sodium Tallowate - Generic term for Tallow mixed with Sodium Hydroxide.
Sodium Palmate - Generic term for Palm oil mixed with Sodium Hydroxide.

It's not only important to read the label but also to understand what it is you are reading.Why is it labelled in such a manner? Well if you don't understand the soap making process, Sodium Hydroxide can be quite a terrifying word to see on your list of ingredients. But once the soap is made by an experienced soapmaker you have no reason to be fearful. All three methods of labeling are perfectly legal.

Why do we choose to put Sodium hydroxide on our labels? Well think of it this way. When you bake a cake you add your ingredients such as flour, eggs, milk, sugar and extract. If you were to sell that cake you would list your ingredients as such. In the same manner we list all the ingredients that go into the making our product.

Soap made with Cocoa Butter and Cocoa Nibs

What is soap? True soap is a substance used for washing that's made from a combination of oils and lye. Sodium hydroxide for bar soaps, Potassium hydroxide for liquid soaps or a combination of both.

Now that we understand what soap is when is it not soap?  I think the answer is now obvious. If it wasn't made using lye and oils then it isn't soap. This is a non - soap bar also called synthetic detergents. These products are either partially or completely made up of synthetic materials. Now what do we mean by synthetic? Here we mean any product that is made by chemical synthesis to imitate a natural product. In this case the natural product is soap. What are these products called if not soap? Beauty bars, moisturizing bars or cleansing bars. They can be called anything but not soap.

Lets take a look at one of these products. Aveeno Moisturizing bar. If you look at the ingredient listing you would notice that it doesn't list sodium hydroxide, saponified oils or the product of a soponified oil.

It does contain Disodium Lauryl Sulfosuccinate. This is an ingredient used in many skin and hair products. It is a degreaser, emulsifier and foaming agent. Another ingredient is Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate. This is a surfactant that is derived from coconut oil. Sodium Tricedeth Sulfate - Surfactant - Cleansing agent, Emulsifying agent, Foaming agent.

Other ingredients include: Oat kernel flour, Water, Stearic Acid (thickener/hardener), Glycerin (Humectant) Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Titanium Dioxide (Pigment) Citric Acid (AHA, PH adjuster and shelf stability) and Hydrogenated Castor Oil ( Emollient). If you look closer at the label itself, you would see that this product is described as soap free.

Both soap and non soap cleansers achieve the purpose for which it was made.  That is to say they both clean by attaching itself to dirt and excess oil on the skin to be washed away. The main difference is that non soap bars are made using synthetic chemicals as part of or all of their ingredients. In some cases sodium hydroxide is added to react with the chemicals to produce a non soap bar.

Well if sodium hydroxide is being added how would I know if it is a soap or non soap? Simply look at the ingredients. On a bar of soap the first few ingredients would include water, and the oils used in the making of the product. Whereas in a non soap's first few ingredients would be usually a surfactant or a degreaser.

So which one do you choose? This is a personal choice. It's been said that soaps clean better as the ingredients tend to be stronger than a non soap bar. It's also been said for that very same reason that non soap is gentler on the skin. This may be true for commercial soap, but a well formulated bar of handmade soap can be just as gentle as your favourite bar of non soap. How? In one word superfat. Superfatting is the process of adding more fats  to a recipe so that there is more fat in the mixture than the lye can react with during saponification. The end result is a gentle, moisturizing skin friendly bar of soap. It's your body. Your skin. Do what feels best for it.

Definitions.

Emollient - A preparation or substance that has a softening or soothing effect when applied to the skin.
Emulsifying Agent - A compound or substance that acts as a stabilizer for both water and oil and enables oils to be uniformly dispersed in water as an emulsion preventing it form separating.
Degreaser - A chemical product that dissolves water insoluble.
Humectant - A substance that absorbs or helps another substance to retain moisture.
Hydrogenated - To treat or combine chemically unsaturated compounds with hydrogen. Liquid vegetable oils are often hydrogenated to turn them to solids.
Saponification - is the alkaline hydrolysis of the fatty acid esters.
Surfactant - Are compounds that lower the surface tension between two liquids or between a liquid and a solid.