Welcome to our first ever Soap blog post. This will be a short one as we get our feet wet in the blogging world, we thought we would start with a little Truth about Lye.
Many people have asked us if it is necessary to make soap with lye, the short answer is yes. Soap without Lye is simply 'not - soap'. Even most liquid 'soaps' are not truly soap. In order for a product to be called soap it must contain Lye. The majority of liquid soaps and even many hard soap bars do not contain Lye, instead they contain detergents. Detergents are chemically engineered to lift dirt from surfaces using chemical compounds called 'surfactants'. These detergents are common in dish soap, body washes, and shampoos.
Now, many people have a healthy respect for the dangers of Lye (chemically known as Sodium Hydroxide), as it can causes burns and other problems if exposed directly to the skin. However, when Lye is used in soap it goes through what is called the Saponification process. Saponification is the process in which triglycerides are combined with a strong base to form fatty acid metal salts during the soap-making process. The distribution of unsaturated and saturated fatty acid determines the hardness, aroma, cleansing, lather, and moisturizing abilities of soaps (in conjunction with additional added fats, colorants, clays, essential oils, etc.)
If you look at your standard name brand soap bar in the grocery store it will contain various detergents at the top of the ingredient statement, and about halfway down the ingredient list you may see things like “sodium palmate”, “sodium tallowate”, or “sodium cocoate”. These are the 'soap' ingredients (Lye) in your retail soap bar.
Because our skin is our largest organ, we want to hydrate and nourish it as much as we can. So we make our soaps without detergents, because detergents are not good for your skin or hair. We use Tallow as the base of our soap recipes, tallow is the closest fat on the planet to the human skin cell, and as such, we believe it is the most nourishing thing you can put on your skin. You can also use other fats like coco butter, shea butter, jojoba oil, etc. however plant based oils will not hydrate your skin like good ole' tallow.
Take a look at our current in stock inventory of Tallow Soaps and Body Butters by clicking the button below. Keep it Clean!!