This is our soapbox! And we don’t lie about lye... - Printable Version +- Organix South Resources (http://www.organixsouth.com/resources) +-- Forum: Customer Resources (/forumdisplay.php?fid=3) +--- Forum: Autumn's Blog (/forumdisplay.php?fid=16) +--- Thread: This is our soapbox! And we don’t lie about lye... (/showthread.php?tid=14)

This is our soapbox! And we don’t lie about lye... - autumn - 05-29-2008 02:57 PM Soap-Making 101: To make soap, you must start with a fat - animal or vegetable (of course, we prefer vegetable), add a caustic agent (not an agnostic agent, although I’ve heard they do make nice soap). When a caustic is added to a fat, it creates heat, glycerin and soap in a process known as “saponification.” Some soaps (like ours) leave all the moisturizing glycerin in, some precipitate the glycerin out and sell it on the industrial market. And that’s the simple version of how soap is made. Traditionally, the caustic used to make soap came from wood ashes (potassium carbonate) until the late 1700s when sodium hydroxide became the favored caustic of the soap-maker. Sodium hydroxide is commonly referred as ‘lye.’ An alternate caustic is potassium hydroxide (potash lye) – but potassium hydroxide doesn’t create a “hard” soap initially and the process is longer and more complicated. Potassium hydroxide is what castile soap is made with. All caustics by themselves can irritate and burn the skin, causing allergic reactions and other nasty results. But during the saponification process, the caustic reacts with the beautiful organic vegetable oils, and after curing, is no longer harmful to the skin. A lot of soap manufacturers get around listing the caustic – sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide - on their labels by either saying “saponified oils of olive, coconut…” or even “sodium olivate or sodium cocoate”. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t using a caustic, like lye, they are just glossing over the fact. Consider this analogy, if you were a baker you would add yeast to water, flour and sugar to make bread. During the baking process, the yeast is converted into “fermentable sugars” and is not found in the finished product. However, every good loaf of bread has yeast on their ingredient list, not fermentable sugars. Why should an ingredient list on a bar of soap be any different? Which brings us to the next question, why don’t soap manufacturers list “sodium hydroxide” or “potassium hydroxide” on their labels? Who villafied lye? Sadly, that answer is Grandma – who made her own soap & didn’t have the sophisticated measuring devices most hand-crafted soap makers use to ensure they are adding just the right amount of lye! And, oh boy, did Grandma’s soap burn! Simply put, unless you have a synthetic detergent bar soap, it was made with lye. A soap maker can get fancy and ‘superfat’ their bar soap, meaning they put extra oils in to make sure all the caustic is used up, yielding a safer, more moisturizing bar soap. And yes, we are fancy and do superfat at Organix-South. We are proud of our hand-crafted, slow process, organic neem soaps and we also believe in full disclosure – you have a right to know what is in the products you use - so you won’t find us lying about using lye. Best of Health, Autumn Blum Founder & CEO