Care for your bar of soap
Although we would love for you to buy a bar of soap per week, we would much rather you be a satisfied, returning customer. To extend the life of your bar, place your soap in a well drained dish after each use. If left in a traditional dish, it will get soggy and melt away. The raised comb style dishes and wooden trays work well. I have found the cone shaped dish that attaches to the wall works best.
Oil Properties
Lard
Some don't realize the wonderful and beneficial effects it has in a bar of soap and on the skin. When your Great Granfather made soap, he used 100% Lard. Lard is a very mild oil, which provides a very creamy lather. It also allows a hard bar of soap. Lard will NOT clog pores, as believed by many!
Oil: Almond, Sweet
This high quality nut oil is a great emollient for softening and conditioning the skin and hair. It is well suited for eczema, psoriasis and itchy, dry and inflamed skin. It is rich in essential fatty acids and vitamins A, B1, B2, B6 and E. Sweet almond oil is light and penetrates easily, making it a great aromatherapy carrier oil, massage oil or after bath oil. Use it in creams, lotions, lotion bars, balms, scrubs, massage oils and soap. It saponifies easily and yields a mild soap with good lather. It can be used as a large percentage of the fats or as an oil added at trace. It is always best to use an antioxidant when using sweet almond oil in your formulations.
Oil: Castor
Castor oil is rich in fatty acids and is soothing and lubricating. It is a humectant that attracts moisture to the skin. It is routinely used in hair oils, balms, and other thick emulsions for the skin and hair. In combination with other oils and as a superfatting agent, castor oil lends emolliency to soap formulations. It's also added to soap to aid in the bubbly lather.
Cocoa Butter ~Unscented
Makes a wonderful addition to soaps to make them harder and add emollients. It has wonderful skin softening and moisturizing properties. Good for normal to dry skin.
Oil: Coconut (76 degree)
Coconut oil (76 Degree) is refined, bleached and deodorized. Coconut oil is useful in formulations for dry, itchy, sensitive skin. It will not clog pores, and it absorbs readily into the skin. Coconut oil is a gift to the soap making industry because of its resistance to rancidity and contribution towards making a hard bar of soap with a wonderfully fluffy lather. Coconut oil is light and non-greasy. It can be incorporated well into balms and stick formulations.
Oil: Olive
This oil is very good to the skin, soothing and emollient. It makes dinse tiny lather when used alone, but you can add a bit of Castor Oil to make larger and longer lasting bubbles.
Oil: Palm
Our palm oil is a refined, food grade palm oil. Palm oil can be used in balm, body butters and stick formulations where rigidity is required. When used in cold process soap making, it resuts in a hard bar when used in combination with other oils such as coconut oil and olive oil. Cold processed soaps made with palm oil resist melting. Palm oil saponifies easily and pulls other oils into saponification more quickly.
Shea Butter (Unrefined)
Is also known as Karite Butter or African Butter. It is from 8% to 15% Unsaponifiable which makes it a great addition for soaps. Also wonderful in lotions, creams, and lip balms for it's moisturizing properties. Unrefined Shae Butter is more penetrating than the refined, because it has not been chemically treated and stripped of its vitamins and nutritious values.
Oil: Vitamin E 400 IU
Vitamin E is used as a preservative. It also has properties that are known to be good for acne and screening the sun.
Saponification
Is the process of turning oils and butters into soap. This is accomplished by mixing lye with distilled water, then carefully adding to the oils. This magical, scientific process occurs through a curing process. This process takes from 3 to 4 weeks. This could be why you often see "coming soon" on soap pages. Waiting to use a great bar of soap can sometimes be a task, especially for those lacking patience.
