What Is The Best Soap To Use?

If you walked down the soap aisle of your favorite store, you’ll find a ton of soaps of all shapes, sizes, and fragrance. You then look at the price it sells then you read the ingredients. But wait, do you really care what the ingredients are in that soap?

Soaps have come a long way.

Saponification

Basically, soap is made by mixing some fat or oil with a strong salt like lye resulting in a chemical reaction called saponification.

Lye is essentially sodium hydroxide. And for all you chemists out there, lye is caustic to the skin (it burns!). However, once the soap has cured the lye that’s used is no longer harmful.

What’s left of the soap are the other ingredients used to make it like oils, fragrance and other chemicals.

Did we say “chemicals”?

You heard it right, a lot of the soap you find in store shelves contain chemicals like parabens, sulfates, and even triclosan!

• Parabens imitate the activity of estrogen, a hormone found to regulate a woman’s menstrual cycle and affect the functions of our body’s essential organs like the brain, heart, liver, bones and reproductive organs.

• Sulfates are what makes the soap bubble. They come in as sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) or sodium laureth sulfate (SLES). Even though bubbles are fun, SLS and SLES irritate the eyes and skin. For people with sensitive skin, sulfates can lead to acne and eczema.

• Triclosan. Let’s just say, don’t use it. In 2016, the FDA made a ruling that essentially forbids the use of triclosan in personal care products because of the chemical’s effects in altering the regulation of hormones, harm to our immune system and the development of antibiotic-resistant germs.

There’s a lot to say about chemicals in soap. But to all you doubters out there, ask yourself this:

“Why would you put chemicals on your skin anyway? If you have a choice to use natural ingredients, would you?”

What we found out was… ordinary soaps although they clean our skin (sometimes, too much!) can cause more harm to our skin than good.

What are we left with when it comes to soap?

Make Your Own Soap

For one, you can make your own soap with natural ingredients that you find in your spice cabinet. Here's the basic tools you're going to need to get you started:

1. Weighing Scale
2. Pair of Rubber Gloves
3. Safety Goggles
4. Stainless steel or heat-resistant plastic pitcher or lid
5. Stainless steel or heat-resistant large plastic spoon
6. Stainless steel pot with lid
7. Large glass or plastic bowl 
8. Two glass or candy thermometers
9. Set of measuring spoons and cups or beakers
10. Stainless steel or plastic ladle
11. Stick blender
12. Two rubber spatulas
13. Plastic soap mold
14. Dishcloths or paper towels
15. Sharp knife
16. Parchment paper

Then watch this YouTube video for ingredients and instructions to make your natural soap.

Soap containing natural ingredients provide natural proteins that moisturize skin without the harmful synthetic and artificial ingredients.

Soap making is for the alchemist in the making who enjoy the creative and fun aspect of making soap. More importantly, if you have the patience and time to make your own soap you're going to be successful.

What if you don't have the knack for making soap? After all, you're going to need some tools, mold, ingredients... and did we say the time and patience to learn the craft?

And, if you're making soap for personal use? We estimate that it will take you 1 to 2 hours initially and then an additional 2 to 4 weeks before you can use it.

Buy Your Soap

Our point, Exactly! Soap making can be labor-intensive and time consuming.

So, if you're really just looking for a soap you want to use that is safe and natural without the hassle. Then, alternatively purchasing is your next best bet.

A “real” good soap isn’t always found in store shelves or advertised on TV. Matter of fact, when we started selling soaps from less well-known manufacturers we found that their soaps are far better than the soaps we personally use! We thought we knew enough, but we proved ourselves wrong.

You’ll find a number of our soaps containing natural ingredients in our store. Free your skin of chemicals, check out our list of Bar Soaps.