The other day I was thinking about a conversation or attempted conversation I had with a customer a couple of years back regarding sodium hydroxide.  I like to label my handmade soaps with all the ingredients that go into the process which of course includes sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or lye.  This particular customer took one look at my ingredients listing and loudly proclaimed “You have caustic ingredients in your soap!”   Of course this exclamation was made in front of a loaded booth of potential customers.  Try as I may I could not get her to understand that sodium hydroxide was necessary to make handmade soap.  After sensing that I was going nowhere with her I gave her a bar to try.   I watched as she promptly ran to another artisan booth selling body care products and loudly declared pointing her finger at me “That woman is making soap with caustic ingredients in it!” holding my bar of soap I gave her.  Listen folks handmade soap can not be made without using sodium hydroxide.  Ain’t gonna happen.  No way.  It is part of the process.  No lye and you have a runny  mess of oils and water.   Soap by it’s very definition is “A cleansing agent, manufactured in bars, granules, flakes, or liquid form, made from a mixture of the sodium salts of various fatty acids of natural oils and fats.” (answers.com).   A true liquid soap is made using potassium hydroxide (KOH), and a cream soap is made using a combination of both sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide.   I know, I know, now I’m gonna hear “BUT MY SOAP DOESN’T HAVE LYE IN IT…” If your bar soap or liquid soap doesn’t contain lye you either 1) don’t have a true soap, you have what we in the business call “a syndet” (synthetic detergent) bar,  2) your soap could refer to lye in a different way, such as “saponified oils of..” or something like “Sodium Olivate ” which is a fancy way of saying Olive Oil or 3) you have soap and your label is mysteriously missing a key ingredient.    Soap is and always has been made one way and that is with either sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide or a combination of both depending on the final result wanted.    The process is just a lot more refined now.  Now kudos to you for reading all through this and I invite you to take a look at our artisan handmade soaps.

Popularity: 53%

Yep!  I’ve been a busy gal having fun making handmade soap logs.  These are different from my usual handmade soap bars and I am having a blast trying out new design methods.  You can get into a rut making the same thing over and over and over again.   This winter I had several requests for wholesale soap logs and this gave me the boost I needed to have a new soap mold designed for making them.   These handmade soap logs have been well received and I couldn’t be more pleased.  Now the hard part.  Deciding what scents to carry them in and/or to offer custom scenting.  We will see how this develops in the future.

Popularity: 76%

I am so excited about my new handmade soap mold.  It is from Soaphutch.com and was custom made for me.  I am so pleased with this mold.  Rich Bartko is wonderful to work with and designed this new mold for me with several options.  I can make a large slab, add dividers for logs, make several different scents of handmade soap logs or use the “dams” and have the option of reducing my batch size.  I am thrilled to add this mold to my collection.   It is easy to use and no lining!  Did I say I love this mold?  I also purchased the the combination log splitter/bar cutter.  This tool is a great help in cutting slabs into logs and will cut several different sizes of handmade soap bars including bed and breakfast size.  Love it!  Thanks again Rich! 

Popularity: 69%