I've been making hand-crafted bath & body products from scratch here on our rural Texas farm for about 6 years or so. This review answers many common questions I get about soap and the commercially available "evil corporate wannabe soap" you get at the grocery or the mall. There are loads of good, reputable handcraft soapers out there. Pick one - it doesn't even have to be me - just treat yourself to the real stuff. You'll be hooked from the start & your skin will thank you for it.

Q: Homemade soap has lye in it. Isn’t that the harsh stuff Granny used way back when?

A: Yes and no. You can't make soap without lye (sodium hydroxide - NaOH) or other strong base like potassium hydroxide (KOH). Soap is made with lye and water, plus fats. The lye is dissolved in the water and then that solution is poured into the fat and the whole thing is stirred until it thickens (trace). That's all there is to it. When the lye molecules and fat molecules come in contact with each other, they undergo a chemical reaction and change into soap and glycerin. The technical term for this process called saponification. When fresh soap is poured into the molds, saponification is about 90% complete but the mixture is still pretty harsh. The soap is then allowed to age to give the lye time to fully settle into the fat. After a few weeks the transformation is complete and all that’s left is soap with a higher glycerin content than that so-called "glycerin" soap available at the store.

It’s the amount of extra fat in the soap (or lack of it, really) that can make it harsh for your skin. Soap made for laundry or cleaning purposes typically contains around 0% extra fat to help keep gunk from building up in your washer and to be sure your things get really clean, but soap made for skin is typically in the 5-8% extra fat range, which leaves extra oils available to nourish & moisturize your skin. Sometimes even more fats are added in a process called superfatting to add extra moisturizing oils and to be sure there are no stray lye molecules floating around – just in case. This can make the bar softer and can make it feel a little “slimy” when wet, but it makes for a rich soap that is very skin-friendly.

Q: What is castile?

A: Castile is soap that has olive oil as its main ingredient. I use mostly olive oil for our soaps with a little coconut, castor oil and palm kernel oil because they make glorious lather and a harder, longer-lasting bar, but occasionally will use other skin-loving oils such as green tea oil, avocado, apricot kernel, walnut, macadamia, lard or whatever else I can find that will make something luscious, based on their beneficial properties to the skin. There's nothing in my soap that an average person can't pronounce.

Q: What is the difference between Milled, Hand-Milled and Rebatched soap?

A: Soap is milled with big commerical machines and rollers that grind and squeeze and press the soap under great pressure so that it can be brought to market sooner. It really can't be done by hand, which is what many people (myself included in the beginning) confuse with rebatching. Then there's double or triple milling, which means that the whole process has been done 2 or 3 times, presumably to make the soap 2 or 3 times more expensive. Once is enough, really. Rebatched soap is just soap that has been grated (yes, just like cheese!), melted down with a little liquid and re-molded. This is a good time time to add extra fats, fragrance, colorants, herbs et cetera because there's no lye left to come in contact and react with to make the soap look or smell weird. The soap has to be re-molded and allowed to set up again, which lengthens the process and typically makes the soaps more expensive. However, just to keep things simple, I charge the same for every regular-size bar. The big custom Texas stars I have available from time to time cost more, but then again they're over twice the size of the regular bars.

There are four basic types of soap:

1) Hot Process (HP) - The ingredients (water, lye & fat) are cooked to turn them into soap. This is what your great grandma probably did with a huge kettle over an open fire, stirring it with a big wooden paddle for hours & hours. I make my HP soap in a crock pot in either 2 or 4 pound batches. The soap is fully saponified in a couple of hours, and any scent and/or colorant is added at the end of the process. Since there's no lye left to come in contact with the additives, the soap won't end up looking or smelling weird. This type of soap just needs a couple of days to allow some of the water to evaporate out & harden before shipment.

2) Cold Process (CP) - The ingredients are not cooked to turn them into soap. This can be done by hand, stirring with a spoon, with a mixer, stick blender or in very small 1 pound batches in the blender. This process requires approximately 6 weeks' curing time to ensure that the ingredients are fully saponified.

3) Rebatching - Shreds of cured soap are melted & remolded because it is a good time to add extra fats, colors, fragrance and/or botanicals so they don't come in contact with the lye. It lengthens the process but makes a nice soap.

4) Melt and Pour (M&P) - For this method, a block of soap is purchased from a commercial retailer, melted and poured into molds. The problem with the 4th method is that because they are the commercial stuff, they typically contain the same chemical stuff that we steer clear of. However, usually the M&P soaps are the clear variety so fun little toys & other things can be embedded in the soap to add visual appeal.

Q: Isn’t soap drying? The brand I use says, “doesn’t dry like soap” on the label.

A: Real soap is just fat, lye & water that have undergone a chemical transformation. That’s all. If the soap has a super-low fat content that doesn’t leave any extra oils available to moisturize the skin, the soap going to dry your skin. Think about that bar of big-brand or overpriced triple-milled stuff you have sitting in the soap dish. Is is turning flaky & looking dried out? If it's going to do that to itself, it's no wonder it's doing the same thing to your skin. This is because the big retail brands rarely contain soap, and the ones that do usually suck out the naturally occurring glycerine to sell as a by-product to other industries because they can make more money than by just leaving it in, where it draws moisture from the air into your skin. Instead, they use chemicals, foaming agents and petrochemicals, which are the leftovers from the manufacture of gasoline and motor oil - yuck. This is also why the big brands are so cheap - they're leftovers from one of the biggest money-making industries on the planet (Hellooo? $4 a gallon gasoline, anyone?).

If you wouldn't put something in your body, do you really think it's such a great idea to put it on your body? Look for natural oils because they absorb readily into the skin, unlike petrochemicals which just sit on top of the skin, and leave it either greasy-feeling or dried out. Because they just sit on top of the skin, petrochemicals are also believed to act as a barrier that prevents your skin, the largest organ in the body, from doing its other job aside from protecting and keeping your innards in: eliminating toxins and wastes from the system.

Read your labels closely. Most of the time they don't have the word, "soap" anywhere on them. Instead they say things like, “deodorant bar,” “beauty bar,” “cleansing bar,” “antibacterial bar,” "detergent bar" or something to that effect. Yikes! Usually the ingredient lists are full of things the average person doesn’t have a clue about what they are or what they’re for, much less pronounce. The antibacterial products also kill off the “good” bacteria that live naturally on your body, and over-strip and over-dry your skin, leaving it cracked and vulnerable to the bad bacteria and germs. Sounds like a prescription to get sick, doesn’t it?

Q: I've never used handmade soap before. What can I expect? Is it really that different?

A: Yes, it's very different. The first thing you'll notice when you open your package is the fragrance. Even the unscented soaps have a pleasant aroma just because the fats (olive oil, walnut oil, lard, etc.) used to make soap each have their own unique scent. What you smell is soap, not a chemical cocktail that pretends to be soap. If you've purchased a scented soap, then you smell the real essential oils and botanicals that I use for fragrancing. When you unwrap it you'll notice that real soap doesn't have the same look or feel as store-bought soap. Mine will vary a little in size if they are hand-cut but they feel heavier than store soap for their size. This is because real soap makers use plenty of extra fats to keep your skin happy and those fats are heavy. You may see a little bit of white powdery-looking residue on the outside of the bar. That's just a little potash, an occasional natural byproduct of the soapmaking process. Just rinse it off. It won't hurt you or the soap. When you begin to use your soap you'll notice that it doesn't feel quite the same either. Unless your soap contains botanicals or pumice, the bar and the bubbles feel silkier in texture. If you want more bubbles, instead of using more soap like you would with the store bought stuff, you use more water. After you dry off you'll notice that you don't have to use as much lotion as you probably have in the past and you won't have to use it as often (I used to grease down at least 2 or 3 times a day, now just once after my shower). Your skin won't feel as itchy and dry, if at all, especially in the winter. After just a couple of baths with real soap you'll begin to notice a positive difference in your skin because the nourishing oils penetrate into your skin to keep it soft, supple and moisturized like nothing you've ever used before.

After you've used your soap, leave it somewhere that it doesn't sit in water but can dry out between uses so it will last longer and not turn to mush. Also, real soaps are meant to be used & enjoyed and they don't stay fresh forever like the chemical-filled stuff you get at the store so lather away - we'll make more!

Q: Why don’t you make B&B Worx or Vikki Secret fragrances or cucumber melon?

A: Although some soapers do, I don’t try to copy the big chain fragrances because if you want that, you can just go to to the mall and get it. Not only that, but Big Corporate America can get pretty territorial & I’d hate to get into some copyright infringement entanglement. Who has time or money for that? Besides, it’s more fun to come up with my own original formulations. Please bear in mind though that since mine are hand-crafted from scratch in small batches, there are going to be subtle variations in color, size and fragrance that the big retailers don’t have to worry about with their bulk volume machinery and full time chemists on staff. Occasionally I do get samples of big-name "type" fragrance oils and have fun playing with them, but if that's what you really want, I know where to get most of them. Contact me for a custom batch.

As far as cucumbers & melons go, those plants aren’t that great for making essential oils & the fragrancing agents available that say cucumber melon are usually synthetics – made from the same mysterious petrochemical whatever-it-is that I try to steer clear of. So until they come out with oily cukes & melons, or until we can find a natural alternative, you won’t find cucumber melon here…hmm, wonder if we can use ground cucumber rind and watermelon juice instead of water for a rebatched soap…stay tuned.

More questions? Feel free to ask. If I don't know the answer already, I'll do my best to find out. Thanks so much for your time & interest & have a beautiful day!