How Is Your Soap Different?

In my introductory blog post I said there is an old adage that all soap is created equal. There really is no adage that all soaps are created equal, OK. I just kind of made that up because I am finding out that a lot of people actually do think that all soap is the same. I have been learning that they are vastly different creatures. “How is your soap different than the soap I can buy at the grocery store?” I get that question a lot. The fact is, is that handmade soap is a product of mixing lye (sodium hydroxide) and fatty acids, which when combined together form a salt. So technically speaking soap is: the salt of a fatty acid, plus glycerin and water. Sodium hydroxide makes a hard soap that can be poured into a mold. Whereas potassium hydroxide makes liquid soap. There is a reason for that, but lets not jump too far ahead of ourselves and into Chemistry 101 to understand this point I am trying to make.

Those terms may seem complicated to some, and trust me, it is going to get a lot more complicated. But that is exactly what soap has been and is to this day. Mass produced soap is made in somewhat the same fashion, but in order to make it appealing and profitable, most of the beneficial and moisturizing glycerine is removed from commercial soaps and sold to other industries. Then, it is colored with dyes and scented with synthetic fragrances, then chalked full of surfactants and detergents to make it “behave” like we expect a soap to behave. So how are the two different? Lets break it down a little bit by looking at just two examples. Brand names have been omitted to protect the.....innocent. :)

Here is the product ingredients for a batch of soap that I first made several months ago, which also happens to be the base recipe for the pencil line technique that I tired in February:

Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Hydrogenate palm and canola oils (fancy way to say vegetable shortening), water, sodium hydroxide, organic oatmeal, pure clover honey.

That is it. I added no colorings, no perfumes or fragrances, no dyes and not even an essential oil to make it smell appealing.

Here is the product ingredients list of a very common liquid hand soap:

Active Ingredients: Triclosan. Inactive Ingredients: Water, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, Decyl Glucoside, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Glycerin, Sodium Chloride, PEG-18 Glyceryl Oleate/Cocoate, Fragrance, Cocamide MEA, DMDM Hydantoin, Tetrasodium EDTA, Citric Acid, Yellow 5 (CI 19140), Red 4 (CI 14700).

There are only four terms in that little list that I can readily identify. How many can YOU identify?

- Sodium Chloride (salt - table salt even)
- Water (H2O)
- Citric Acid (vitamin c)
- Glycerin

Now, lets find out what the other ingredients are, shall we?

Triclosan: is an antibacterial product.

Sodium Laureth Sulfate: is a detergent and a surfactant.

Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate: is basically a surfactant that foams.

Decyl Glucoside: is also a surfactant, which according to wikipedia is plant derived from the “reaction of glucose from corn starch with the fatty alcohol decanol which is derived from coconut.”

Cocamidopropyl Betaine: a synthetic surfactant, 2004 allergen of the year according to American Contact Dermatitis Society.

Glycerin: technically a triglyceride that is soluble in water.

Sodium Chloride: NaCl, is an ion of sodium and an ion of chlorine, otherwise known as table salt.

PEG-18 Glyceryl Oleate/Cocoate: “is an ethoxylated glyceryl ester which functions as a Skin-Conditioning Agent- Emollient; Surfactant - Emulsifying Agent” from the Environmental Working Group web page. I could not find anything specific about “what this actually is.” I suspect it has a proprietary history and is considered a trade secret.

Fragrance: without knowing what specific fragrance we are talking about here, for simplicity lets just say that it is a volatile synthetic odorant. It has to be strong enough in concentration to vaporize and reach the nose.

Cocamide MEA: Ok, we have to search around a little bit to see exactly what this stuff is, because its more than just one thing. Cocamide MEA is a compound that melts down to a vicious amber liquid which is made from fatty acids of coconut that have been combined with ethanolamine.

“Ethanolamine is a toxic, flammable, corrosive, colorless, viscous liquid with an odor similar to that of ammonia” (wikipedia).

DMDM Hydantoin; antimicrobial formaldehyde preservative. The formaldehyde released from it makes the environment less favorable to microorganisms.

Tetrasodium EDTA: is a chelating agent and has many industry synonyms. Without using our PHD in chemisty, basically it renders and reduces the activity of metal ions, and according to Bubble and Bee Organics is listed as one of the top five chemicals to avoid.

Citric Acid: is a weak organic acid used as a preservative.

Yellow 5 (CI 19140: is more commonly known in the chemical world a tartrazine, which is a yellow dye.

And finally -

Red 4 (CI 14700): is also more commonly known as “red dye”.

Phew! Now, see, I know that was a whole heck of a lot of information! And I hope that I did not loose you, dear reader, half way down that long and winding road. But I have a very good a reason that I want you to read it.

I want to use this as a specific example to answer the question that I get all the time: “how is your soap different from other soaps I can just get at the grocery store?” As you can see, they are ASTRONOMICALLY different! If I took the time to explain to each person who is interested in my soap all of the ingredients that are in a commercial bar of soap- all of the chemicals, dyes, surfactants and the health concerns associated with each and every one of those ingredients- they would have tuned out at “Cocamidopropyl Betaine”. That is only the 6th ingredient on the list! The thing is, is that a lot of consumers do not read the package label ingredients on soap which are there for a number of very good reasons. They are listed there to let you know what a product contains, sure. But did you also know that they are there to let you know which of those products can, has, or have been known to be dangerous to human health. Do you know WHY that is the main reason that the label ingredients are even listed there?

So that you don’t have to purchase them if you don’t want to.

So to answer the question “How is your soap different than the soap I can buy at the grocery store?” my answer is this:

My soap recipe contained 8 ingredients that are readily identifiable, and they are all provided by nature. I already have them. I don’t need to make them. And I certainly don’t need to make them, take them out and put them back in again. I care about the plants and animals that give us the necessary means to carry on with our lives. I care that dyes, perfumes, fragrances, detergents and other kinds of chemicals can cause skin reactions, allergies and lead to the build up of toxins in the world around us. My soap is different because I care about the health of the people who will be using it.

There are many helpful links provided here and I encourage anyone who is curious about commercial soap to look further into them. Then I encourage you to take a look at the soap, shampoo, and other beauty products that you use on a daily basis and find out what's really in them. Look up the ingredients and find out what they actually are and where they come from. Read the studies that scientists are doing on these chemicals and products, find out where else they are hiding. Find out how they are impacting your lives. You might be surprised as to what you find, and you might find yourself being completely turned around and ready to take the steps necessary to protect your own health and the environment around you.