Why Use Handmade Soap? | Scent of the Sun
Scent of the Sun offers handmade vegan soaps with a moisturizing lather and an artistic flair. What differentiates our products and other handmade soaps from commercial bars? Read on to find out more.
The Handmade Soap Advantage
Handmade soap is more than a pretty bar. Behind every soap is a careful blend of oils, butters, and lye. In each Scent of the Sun bar soap, you’ll find only the following ingredients:
- Olive oil, coconut oil, sustainable palm oil, castor oil
- Shea and cocoa butter
- Water, essential and fragrance oils, colorants
- Lye
Skillfully mixed, these essential ingredients provide a rich lather without unnecessary additives or caustic chemicals. The result is a vegan soap that is creamy to the touch, moisturizing to the skin, and free of animal products.
Whether you’re using it as a body or a face bar, our soap will be both cleansing and nourishing.
Many of our customers have told us that their skin feels entirely different after trying handmade soap. It’s not difficult to see why. Unlike commercial “soaps,” which hold synthetic detergents that can dry out or even harm the skin (see below), handmade soaps use essential ingredients that refresh the skin with nutrients and antioxidants.
Handmade Soap vs. “Moisturizing Bars”
What makes our and other handmade soaps different from commercial bars? Simply put, many commercial bars are not actually soap! If you’ve ever seen a “soap” labeled a “beauty bar,” “body bar,” or “moisturizing bar,” what you’re seeing is not soap, but a potentially caustic cocktail of chemicals and detergents.
Turn the package around, and you won’t find a brief list of essential ingredients. You’ll find a dense index of chemical gobbledygook.
That’s because corporations make these bars using an entirely separate process from traditional soapmaking. Usually produced in small batches, natural soap comes from the process of saponification, a chemical process in which water, lye, oils, and butters react to produce soap and glycerine. Mass-produced commercial bars emerge from an industrial process often utilizing petroleum products, alcohols, synthetics and preservatives.
Many of these commercial “soaps” employ a petroleum base. Most use animal fat culled from slaughterhouses. Nearly all are filled with synthetic additives.
Effectively detergents, these bars can be harsh or even toxic. Far from “moisturizing,” these “body bars” can actually strip moisture from the skin instead of adding it. And as you will see below, they lack a critical element of all successful soap: glycerine.
Glycerine: The Crucial Difference
Perhaps the most important difference between these commercial bars and handmade soap is the presence of glycerine. A natural byproduct of traditional soapmaking, glycerine is a compound that helps skin retain its moisture and softness. It’s essential to a good lather in any soap, and it’s part of what makes handmade soap so good for healthy skin. It’s also something you won’t find in most commercial bars.
Glycerine is expensive, and many corporations prefer to use it in lotions and skin creams. Unlike traditional soapmakers, corporate manufacturers typically remove glycerine from their bars in order to use them in other products. The result is a detergent bar that won’t lather well.
Indeed, this “soap” can actually dry out the skin–and can be especially harsh on sensitive skin.
High-quality handmade soaps all feature glycerine. Furthermore, Scent of the Sun soaps are uniquely “superfatted” with shea and cocoa butters to ensure that some of the oils survive saponification. This process ensures an especially glycerine-rich, nourishing lather that locks in moisture on the skin.
Once our customers experience the rich cleanse one of our soaps provides, few return to commercial bars.
Now that you know the reasons to use handmade soap, why not try some of ours? Visit our shop now to treat your skin to a luxurious, moisturizing clean!