How to Choose the Best Oils for Cold Process, Handcrafted Soap: Teach Me Thursday

A batch of soap, not quite ready to pour

First of all, I hope you are buying cold process soaps for your skin rather than the melt 'n pour or typical store bought soap. That could be a whole different blog post! Then, once you are completely hooked on the superior goodness of cold process soap, what ingredients should you look for? And yes, all soap should be labeled with ingredients, beginning with the oil name that has the highest percentage in the recipe.

I prefer to use the common names for all of my oils on the ingredient labels, which makes the label reading much easier for the soap customer. For example, I will use "olive oil" rather than the Latin, species name Olea europaea. I'm guessing that not that many people will recognize Olea europaea as plain old olive oil. It gets even more complicated with the other oil names.

A good place to start for the first two ingredients in any handcrafted soap are olive oil and/or palm oil. Olive oil, especially, is very high in oleic fatty acids which produces a soap that has excellent conditioning properties for the skin. Palm oil is also high in palmitic fatty acids which helps produce a hard bar with lather that is stable.

Then, you might look for some ingredients that add a little "bubbliness" to the lather. Castor, coconut, and palm kernel oils do this job very well.


Keeping warm in the oven to start the curing process

While soap can be made with only olive oil (known as castile soap), you will probably want to find a soap that has at least 3-4 ingredients to give the bar some interesting and dimensional properties. But, be mindful of any skin sensitivities that you may have.

To take the soap "over the top," look for these additional oils toward the end of the ingredient list: sweet almond, avocado, cocoa, jojoba, sesame, shea, and evening primrose. These oils add additional conditioning properties to the soap - the "oh, so good for you skin" component! I often superfat my soaps with these oils so some of the oil molecules are left behind after the soap cures - going straight to your skin when the soap is used!

So there you have it - soap oils 101. If you have any questions, please ask!

~Dana @ SoapSense
www.soapsense.etsy.com

And the Winner is..............

The winner of my latest Soap Butt Giveaway is Katy!  Congratulations, Katy!  I'll be emailing her shortly so she can claim her 1 pound of soap butts.  Thanks for everyone's participation!  Stay tuned for the next giveaway.

Soap Butts.....GIVEAWAY!

Another giveaway...for handcrafted soap lovers!

Yes, soap butts...the last slice leftover from each log of soap that isn't pretty or big enough to be a bar on its own. But it is still great soap!

I'll choose 5 to 6 soap butts for you weighing at least one (1) pound when combined. They will be a mixture of essential oil and fragranced soaps as seen in my Etsy shop, SoapSense.

Contest runs through Monday, July 23rd, and is open to U.S. and Candian participants. Just enter through Rafflecopter below. Visit daily to better your chances of winning via a random, automated drawing.

Value: $14.00

TIP: If the Rafflecopter entry box does not show, try refreshing the page.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Soap...GIVEAWAY!

It's as simple as pie - or, soap!  Just use Rafflecopter below to enter to win.  Winner receives their choice of either one (1) bar of Antique Rose -OR- Bluebonnet soap from my Etsy shop, Soap Sense.

TIP:  Refresh your screen if giveaway box does not show.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Soap Dishes 101

For anyone out there who is a handcrafted soap junkie, this soap dish might be just for you!  Handcrafted from upcycled mesquite wood, it has generously spaced slats for the ultimate care of your handcrafted soap bar.

Handcrafted, cold-processed soap needs just a little bit of extra care to get the most mileage out of a bar.  It needs to air dry between showers or baths to avoid the "sticky goo" syndrome that just wastes soap down the drain.  A washcloth, loofah, or scrubbie will also allow your soap to generate the most lather and bubbles without being wasteful.

Give your handmade soaps some TLC, and each bar will be around a long time!  This soap dish will be listed on Etsy shortly...just follow the shop link below to get the details.

-Dana @ Soap Sense
DLPom LLC

Soap is on My Mind...

Soap must be on the minds of Etsy treasury creators today.  Two of my Texas Blooms Series soaps, Bluebonnet and Gardenia Goat's Milk, made it into two different treasuries:





Enjoy!

~Dana