FACT FILES ON HANDMADE, PURE ORGANIC SOAP

Off goes the brain searching through the memory again- this time landing on The Doors song “The End”. That’s an interesting outcome after contemplating the outcome of soap in the current marketplace…it feels a bit like that!

If you are like the majority of consumers these days, you probably haven’t noticed that the supermarket shelves now largely stock hand and body washes, where once they carried numerous commercial brands of soap. Most of the iconic soap brands have disappeared from the shelves…indeed, production has been ceased in many cases. Do you remember the brands…Dettol, Cashmere Bouquet, Camay, Imperial Leather, Lifebuoy, Lux, Rexona, Pears, Solvol and Sunlight Personal, to name the most common. Most brand names have now disappeared- it has become a memory exercise.

The main soap manufacturing companies- Colgate Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Pears, Procter & Gamble, PZ Cussons and Unilever- have progressively ceased soap production in favour of the more economical production of body washes/liquid soaps. The market infiltration of these products increased after the Colgate Company acquired the rights to ‘soft soap’ in 1987 from the Minnetonka Corporation- who had been manufacturing it since 1980 in the US. Minnetonka had achieved $25 million in sales in its first six months of operation. 

The marketing campaigns hit the media with vengeance- convincing consumers that body washes were a far more desirable option than soap. Here’s a video depicting the strategies of the “Say No To Soap” campaign used by Colgate-Palmolive to market their ‘Palmolive Naturals’ body wash: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDHoivL4Xm4

It would be hard not to feel manipulated after watching the campaign direction. Colgate-Palmolive was the global leader in body washes by 1993.

Body washes now hold the majority of sales in the marketplace- with soap sales continuing to decrease by roughly 5% per year. Many of the soap factories have been closed around the world- Unilever’s Sunlight UK (begun 1885) was closed in 2009; Unilever’s Rexona (begun 1908) was closed in 1989; Standard Soap Factory in UK closed in 2012; Lever Brothers, Baltimore in USA closed this year. Production of ‘Cashmere Bouquet’ was ceased in 2005, after being manufactured since 1872. Cussons in Australia closed its Dandenong factory in 2012. Unilever in New Zealand closed its Petone factory in 2013. Unilever has also expressed that it no longer intends to carry its now owned Pears soap in to the future. Procter & Gamble is currently negotiating to sell off its USA Ivorydale plant, where the iconic ‘Ivory” soap has been made since 1879.

Many of the iconic soap trade name licenses have been sold to manufacturers in Pakistan and India in recent years. Soap is definitely being shed by the big production companies in favour of body washes. The production time and costs of manufacturing body washes is far more commercially viable. The consumer has embraced the marketing campaigns- sales figures are proof. Sales figures for body washes represented $2.7 billion in the US last year- whilst soap sales were $1.5 billion.

If you’ve been following our blogs, you’d appreciate that body washes are primarily made from petrochemicals. They are a cheap buffered detergent suitably coloured and fragranced, and marketed as a product for ease of use. Yet these products have impacted considerably on the environment through plastic packaging and production methods. They are profitable for the manufacturer- yet they present a huge budget concern to the consumer, as superfluous product liberally gets washed down the drain.

Back to The Doors song:
“This is the end, beautiful friend
  This is the end, my only friend.
  The end of our elaborate plans
  The end of everything that stands, the end.”

How the battle will play out with time is yet to be seen. Commercially, a limited range of soaps remains in production to satisfy continuing consumer demand, but for how much longer is questionable.

The astute consumer is turning to handmade soaps as a solution for a better option in products. They are embracing the benefits that can be derived from a cold processed handmade soap, as our lives become more saturated with chemicals. Soap is fast becoming the domain of the artisan- continuing to use traditional soap making methods to create a superior product that is free of chemicals that irritate the skin.

FACT FILES ON HANDMADE, PURE ORGANIC SOAP

 “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
   Catch a tiger by the toe.
   If he hollers, let him go,
   Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.”

Hmm…the current politically correct version of the counting rhyme game played in childhood, to select the “it” person for exclusion somehow has lost the flow it had in my youth. I find it somewhat confronting that even children’s books are being edited to remove any of the unacceptable stigmas associated with our chequered history as a developing society…to arrive at destination point Z, but remove the travel diary seems somewhat of a pointless account of the journey. Perhaps the reference to a tiger and its stripes holds more relevance to the topic of eczema though.

I caught the passing conversation of two young women at the markets on Sunday: “I can’t use pump body washes anymore…they’ve given me eczema.” The conversation was obviously stimulated by our soap stall…yet they continued walking by, much to my frustration.

I’ve touched on the cheap, chemical cocktails that represent the ingredients of most commercial body washes many times on our Facebook page over the years. Body washes flooded the market in recent years as a cheaper option to manufacturers- accompanied by marketing campaigns to convince the consumer that they were a better option than soap. They are however just a more profitable production option for manufacturers, and the consumer the gullible target.

I cannot repeat enough the importance of learning to read ingredient labels to grasp the product on offer…beyond the enticing marketing words. That commercial product brandishing words of ‘natural’ etc need only contain one drop of that ‘natural’ ingredient to allow them to trade off those claims. Product ingredients in Australia are required to be listed in descending order of content percentages- so if you read the ingredients list and find that natural ingredient towards the end, it will offer very little benefit to the product or you.

Know what you are buying, and don’t be mislead by marketing. Those body washes are largely just petrochemical detergents with synthetic fragrance and appealing colouring agents added. No wonder people are experiencing eczema.

‘Eczema’ is a term applied to a large list of largely unqualified skin irritations…from the mild to the extreme- when the term changes to ‘dermatitis’. It is usually identified by collective symptoms of redness, bumps, swelling, itching, dryness, crusting, flaking, blistering, cracking, oozing or bleeding of the skin. That’s a broad range of symptoms to acquire the applied label.

There are generally no cures…just management strategies offered. The skin irritations are commonly termed as being either ‘atopic eczema’ or ‘allergic eczema’, and the causes can range from food allergies through to product exposure and material contact exposure. Most sources remain undiagnosed.

It is now common amongst our youth, with 1 in 5 children under the age of 2 experiencing ‘eczema’- the term usually applied to those having a weakened skin barrier of unknown reasons…making them more prone to the effects of chemical exposure. I’ve touched on our basic skin structure in the past- refer blog “Where’s my suit of armour?”, 09/07/14.

I think it’s very easy to explain away a problem by labelling someone’s weakened skin barrier as the cause, and then offering various ‘barrier creams’ to prevent further irritation, rather than stating that there are so many untested chemicals in products that there is no way to even begin testing for reactions to them. Hmm…there’s obviously something wrong with your skin or immune system, rather than there’s something obviously wrong with our chemically saturated world!

Perhaps those chemicals are stripping our children’s immune systems from developing properly these days. My daughter reacted to every commercial personal care product. She was tested for common food allergens- one of which was yellow colouring…which is used in just about every commercial product on the market to improve visual appeal- from shampoo to butter. In desperation, I began making our organic soap products to ensure as pure a product as possible for her safe use. Use of school soap or public toilet hand washes brought on instant red, itching and painful irritation to her hands that took up to a week to settle down again. My daughter, now 21, continues to have these responses to commercial products. As a mother, it has always been equally distressing for me to watch her suffer…she has the whitest, finest skin- exaggerating her skin reactions to the visually alarming!

However, she has never reacted to any of our organic soaps. My recommendation to anyone suffering ‘eczema’ would be to have a competent doctor specialising in bio and environmental medicine investigate the possible cause. Any treatment offered will only manage the condition until the cause is identified and removed from the equation. Medical intervention is required, but I believe the use of chemical free personal care products, without fragrance and colouring, will help to support the skin by not stripping the skin of its natural barrier.

The mildest soap that can be produced is an olive oil soap. It’s a good starting point to provide gentle care for the skin. I unfortunately purchased a handmade olive oil soap for my daughter many years ago- assuming I was buying a chemical free product…but she reacted badly. The makers failed to list the colouring agents added to the ingredients. It took my own experiences of making organic olive oil soap to identify that factor. After using oils with various depths of colour, it became obvious that every soap resulted in an ever so slight variation of off-white or cream as an outcome. There were definitely no shades of green ever evident…like the colour exuded by the handmade soap I’d purchased. Even using the dark green organic hemp oil that goes into our ‘hemi’ soap results only in the slightest hint of green to that general cream colour outcome. To not list colouring agents is in fact in breach of consumer labelling laws. Ignorant people put others health at risk, and should be reported. I have had some customers whose lives have been put on the line by labelling oversights of products.

Identifying the cause of eczema- it’s a bit like playing the rhyme game for identification…allergic contact, atopic, discoid, irritant contact, nummular, seborrhoeic, stasis, venous or xerotic- eczema, dermatitis, psoriasis or rosacea- it’s all a game of ingredient elimination at the end of the day…even for doctors. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe…”

FACT FILES ON HANDMADE, PURE ORGANIC SOAP

If you’ve been following our blogs, by now you’d be becoming aware of the importance of reading ingredient labels on personal care products. You’d be conscious of the fact that most of those commercial products contain petrochemicals.

Making choices is easy, right? In response to this thought, my brain has automatically called up the classic diner scene from the movie “Five Easy Pieces” from the 70s, starring Jack Nicholson- link attached for those unfamiliar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wtfNE4z6a8

One of the main ingredients that personal care products and cosmetics are built around is mineral oil. In fact, roughly 98% of commercial personal care products contain mineral oil…leaving very little room for selective choice to the consumer.

Mineral oil is essentially a waste product of the petrochemical industry. It is a cheap, readily accessible resource from industry- being produced as a by-product of the distillation of gasoline from crude oil. Untreated or mildly treated mineral oils are classified by the World Health Organisation as being Group 1 carcinogenic to humans. Highly refined mineral oils, as in those contained in personal care products, are classified as being not suspected to be carcinogenic…but available information is not sufficient to classify them as harmless.

Hmm…that builds confidence over its use in commercial personal care products doesn’t it? Would you still feel confident slathering that baby oil on your precious newborn child if you read the label and realised that it was nothing more than fragranced mineral oil? That’s the problem- we don’t tend to read the labels, and assume that what is sold to us must be safe…think again! Research into chemicals used and their long term effects is a slow, laborious process, and restrictive actions then taken even slower- think asbestos, tobacco, BPA, DDT, Thalidomide…even leaded gasoline!

The use of petrochemical derivatives/mineral oils became necessary during the restrictions placed on natural resources during WW2. Thereafter, it just made economic business sense to find a useful purpose for them, rather than deal with the costs of waste disposal. The other advantage in using mineral oil over natural oils in personal care products became quickly obvious to industry. Mineral oil is non-biodegradable- providing products with a stable shelf life…more economic sense.

Mineral oil is used in three different forms as a base in products: in a liquid state…mineral oil, in a jelly state…petrolatum, in a solid state…paraffin wax. It gets listed as an ingredient under various synonyms like: liquid paraffin, mineral oil, mineral oil mist, mineral syrup, white mineral oil, white oil, hydrocarbon oil, petroleum hydrocarbons, petroleum, paraffin oil, paraffinic, soft paraffin, and petroleum jelly. The composition of these oils varies depending on the crude oil source, the refining process and the additives present.

The actual problem with using mineral oil on our bodies is that it forms a film on the skin that blocks the pores and the natural processes of the skin. It actually traps dirt and bacteria instead of them being naturally dispersed. The chemically based oil film then prevents the effective absorption of all those added ingredients that are supposedly included to benefit the skin…like those natural oils and vitamins added in minute amounts for marketing purposes. So more chemicals are added…like those to enhance the permeability to the skin.

As a consumer, you have the ability to decrease the number of chemicals your skin comes into contact with. All you have to do is make the simple choice of reading labels and purchasing personal care products with all-natural, organic ingredients instead. Of far more benefit to the skin are natural plant oils- offering all the nutritive qualities assigned to a plant oil. The plant oils are absorbed readily by the skin- benefiting and nurturing it.

Our pure organic soaps offer chemical, colour and fragrance free gentle care to reduce the chemical burden on your skin.

Back to the diner scene from “Five Easy Pieces”…quote, ”No substitution!” There are better options/substitutes available to us. Read those product labels. Become conscious of ingredients…informed people, make informed decisions.

FACT FILES ON HANDMADE, PURE ORGANIC SOAP

Guess you’re wondering what the title has to do with soap. Nothing- it’s just how my brain associates things…sorting and sifting information- this time centred around numbers and pH values of personal care products…numbers being the associating factor.

The Thunderbirds TV series is a favourite from my husband’s childhood…that continues. A few years back, the series was being screened at 4.30 AM on Saturday mornings…so we’d go to bed with the TV tuned in. BAM...the minute the introduction countdown would begin, he’d be bolt upright and alert. This response was from a man who sleeps through our security system alarm blasting the neighbourhood…but to the sound of “5-4…”, he’d be wide awake in anticipation- imagining he’s Scott Tracy (TB1 pilot, modelled on Sean Connery). He sees me as Lady Penelope without question…a female puppet version of MacGyver in his eyes. I don't know whether I should take that as a compliment or not. I believe my husband’s dream job would have been as a set/model maker for this series.

We had a market customer on Sunday who bought our soaps for a neighbour’s son to try in the management of his eczema. “Eczema”…it’s a tag placed against a very broad range of largely unidentified skin rashes. Most skin irritations can be sourced back to metabolic issues- usually food allergies. Anything applied topically might assist in soothing skin irritations, but the problem will not be resolved until the source of irritation is identified through the skilled resources of a competent nutritional and environmental doctor.

Other factors leading to skin problems can indeed be irritations caused by personal care product ingredients. The customer above said that her neighbour was about to try ‘baby soap’ on her son. I mentioned in the last blog that I’d done an ingredient analysis of many commercial soaps- one of which is JOHNSON’S “Baby Soap”, as listed:
- Sodium Palmate- saponified palm oil
- Sodium Palm Kernelate- saponified palm kernel oil
- Mineral Oil- petrochemical
- Fragrance
- Titanium Dioxide- white pigment
- Water
- Tetrasodium EDTA- synthetic chelating agent- skin irritant, allergen & suspected carcinogen
- Etidronic Acid- bisphosphonate & chelating agent- skin irritant

Its main ingredients are cheap, harsh palm oils- in combination with the petrochemical irritant mineral oil- further enhanced by fragrance irritants of an unidentified source, to conceal the smell- with a potential carcinogen added, to combine the ingredients successfully. Hmm…does that really sound like something that you want to use on your baby now that you can identify what the ingredients actually are?

I don’t know if they still do it, but I remember being given a gift pack of baby products when leaving the hospital after having our children. I was told that these were the best and only products that I should use on my babies. Oh, to have the opportunity for an encore in life over that moment, knowing what I now know! We generally accept what we are told by those supposedly in authority of a subject. We accept, as they accept, nothing more than marketing blurb put forward by commercial companies- put forward by artful copywriters, to promote a product to the retail market. Oh dear- I started my career in Graphic Design/Advertising. One core subject of study was Copywriting- trust me, there’s nothing substantial to the process beyond the creative use of words…”secret ingredient XPY will…”

Marketing has led us to believe that baby’s skin is “delicate” requiring “gentle, mild” product ingredients. Shall we reflect on the ingredients in JOHNSON’S Baby Soap again? A very simple relevant fact is that baby’s skin actually has a pH 7…the same as water- the neutrality point on a pH scale. Adult skin has a pH range of 4.5-6 - depending on diet, ethnicity and the body area. So if marketing were to be true with reference to pH scales, a more appropriate statement to make with regards to personal care products would alternatively be “Harsh enough for use on adult skin”!

Other pH values to reflect on: human blood pH 7.4, dog skin pH range 6.2-8.62 depending on breed (pH 7.3 average), dishwashing liquid pH 7.3 (Palmolive), black coffee pH 5. Are you noticing something? Despite all the marketing claims used for baby and dog care products, dishwashing liquid would prove a good pH match to use on their skins. Hmm…guess that’s a bit alarming to promote- especially when two thriving, profitable industries have been built around specialist care products- promoting these skins as being sensitive and delicate.

However, we would not recommend using dishwashing detergent in either scenario, mainly because of its toxic petrochemical ingredients- but that is essentially what you are buying as the ingredients in these products. If I told you that instead of paying $20 for that 250mL bottle of dog shampoo, that you could make your own at a cost of lets say 10c a bottle maximum…you’d be feeling a little manipulated, cheated and angry- more on that next week!

Soap has a pH 9…alkaline in range. There are two outlooks with regards to the pH value of personal care products. Adult skin is in fact acidic. Most argue that any higher variation to this range creates a breeding ground for bacteria. Others argue that bacteria can’t breed within a more alkaline range. I’m a supporter of alkaline ranges for health generally.

Very simply, commercial products that have been “pH adjusted” have had other chemicals added to reduce the end pH value…further adding to the chemical cocktail. One chemical produces undesirable side effects, so another is added to buffer it. Those 'gentle' baby shampoos that don't sting 'sensitive' eyes have another chemical buffer added to do so. Somehow, I find it alarming that products are produced that intentionally negate the natural instinct to protect one's eyes from a chemical element by closing them. No matter what the pH range of a product is, the skin will regain its natural pH again within 2 hours of use.

Here’s an ingredient list of another commercial product, frequently recommended for use on irritated skin-

REDWIN “Sorbolene Body Wash”, as listed:
- Water
- Sodium Laureth Sulphate- synthetic foaming agent & surfactant- skin irritant
- Ammonium Lauryl Sulphate- synthetic foaming agent & surfactant- skin irritant
- Glycerin- synthetic petrochemical
- Cocamidopropyl Betaine- synthetic surfactant
- Sorbitol- sugar alcohol & humectant
- Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate- synthetic surfactant- skin irritant
- Cocamide DEA-synthetic surfactant
- Styrene/Acrylates Copolymer-polyester resin- skin irritant
- Sodium Chloride- salt
- PEG-7 glycerol Cocoate- synthetic binder- skin irritant
- Citric Acid- organic acid & chelating agent
- Triticum Vulgare (Wheat Germ) Oil- but at this end of the descending listing, it's an insignificant amount to achieve any benefit
- Tertasodium EDTApolyamino carboxylic acid & chelating agent- organic pollutant
- Methylchloroisothiazolinone- preservative- skin irritant
- Methylisothiazolinone- preservative- mutagenic neurotoxin that can change DNA structure- 100% skin absorption

After reading that list, do you really think there is benefit to be gained through its use on an irritated skin? Yet go into a pharmacy and ask for guidance- you’ll be offered this or a similar product. Sorbelene…that’s purported to be mild, right? That might have been the case many years ago in its initial formulation, but the ingredients drastically changed over the course of time. Once you start reading labels and understanding what the ingredients actually are, you’ll begin to think very differently about products, marketing and advice given at pharmacies.

Commercial soaps are fairly harsh- being made from cheap oils and/or petrochemicals. Our handmade soaps are mild, moisturising and offer the beneficial qualities of the organic plant oils used. All of our organic soaps are chemical, colouring and fragrance free...the primary irritants used in most personal care products. Because we superfat our soaps- whereby not all of the oils are converted into a solid soap salt- a layer of the suspended oils used is applied to the skin with use. Our soaps are rich in natural glycerine content, as a by-product of the cold process method of soap making used. Glycerine is the most regarded moisturising ingredient in the cosmetic industry- being a humectant, attracting moisture to the skin.

It is not the pH range of a product that is generally an irritant to the skin, but more so the ingredients used. Our bodies were very simply never intended to process petrochemicals. The use of petrochemicals has developed through economics…a cheap waste product of the petroleum industry being put to use.

By caring for your skin with the natural nutrients of the organic plant oils that we use in our soaps, instead of synthetic chemicals, your skin will become healthy, naturally balanced and moisturised through the one simple daily task of bathing.

The resounding message is that our organic soaps are “F.A.B.”...the Thunderbirds' affirmative radio code for 'fabulous'!

FACT FILES ON HANDMADE, PURE ORGANIC SOAP

Blokes love our organic soap! It never ceases to astound us that men are the biggest users of our organic soap range. It certainly wasn’t something that we were expecting…not by any stretch of our imagination- but there it is!

Most men wander up to us at the markets- a little embarrassed to begin with- but the conversation generally runs like this:

Us: Hi! Have you used our soaps before? Would you like us to explain the soaps to you?

Bloke: Yeah, that’d be good. My skin gets really dry. My wife buys those damn body-washes. I hate them! I hate pumping the bottle- I hate the flowery smell…I just hate them! I just want to grab a cake of soap & have a shower…but she insists body-washes are better…yet my skin never used to be dry.

We explain our organic soap range- that we don’t use chemicals or fragrances, and that our organic soaps are naturally moisturising.

Most men usually choose our ‘coci’ soap on the basis that they can use it for shaving and as a shampoo as well. They walk away with their purchase in our brown paper bag- hidden under their armpit. The whole scene is vaguely reminiscent of the embarrassed purchase of condoms from a female shop assistant. Ah- but then they come back saying that they loved our soap- their skin has been great- and the next purchase is completed with confidence.

Then we have females who are shopping for soap for their husband or son…either with dry skin or eczema. The conversation generally goes like this:

Woman: I’m looking for soap for my husband. He drives me nuts…he’s hung up on the past and wants to use soap. He reckons that the body-wash makes his skin dry and irritated.

Us: I take it that you don’t have dry skin yourself then?

Woman: No…well I do…everyone does, particularly in winter- but I use moisturiser after I’ve showered. He can’t be bothered! Anyway, I think he just doesn’t like the smell of the body-wash…and he’s stubborn- says he hates fiddling with it all.

So we explain our organic soap range, and that body-washes can be harsh on the skin because of the petrochemicals, and preservatives used to provide a shelf life, and that we don’t add fragrance to our soaps because they are common irritants to the skin. We explain that our soaps are highly moisturising because of the naturally achieved glycerine content…the most moisturising ingredient used in the cosmetic industry- and because of the organic plant oils that we select…which gently nurture the skin without stripping it.

The woman begrudgingly usually buys a ‘coci’ soap then utters a complaint about the extra cleaning she’ll have to do…because soaps are so messy. We comment that in fact there won’t be any difference…that it’s the chemicals used in commercial soaps that cause the residual scum.

We usually wonder afterwards…has the woman in fact ‘heard’ anything that we’ve said? We think blokes are pretty damn switched on to soap with good reason.

FACT FILES ON HANDMADE, PURE ORGANIC SOAP

ilo ORGANICS soaps are handcrafted using the cold process method of soap manufacture. This method ensures that the natural nutrient qualities of the selected organic plant oils used remain intact- as the ingredients are mixed by hand without the use of heat.

We have provided a brief description of the various methods used to make soap for your scrutiny. We believe that informed people make informed decisions.

COLD PROCESS METHOD- used by ilo ORGANICS

This method involves mixing a fatty acid (the oil) with an alkali (sodium hydroxide) to form a solid. This process is called saponification. The resultant soap is a fatty acid salt.

During the first 24 hours after combining the ingredients and pouring it into moulds, the molecules reconfigure- causing the mixture to generate natural heat, and progress through a transparent gel stage before becoming an opaque solid. At this point, the sodium hydroxide has been rendered completely inert- creating natural glycerine as a by-product in its place. It is for this reason that sodium hydroxide is not required to be listed as an ingredient, as it has a technical effect in the production process only, and is converted into glycerine as an ingredient.

A simple explanation of this molecular reaction is: fat (the oil) + 3NaOH (sodium hydroxide) = glycerine + 3soap.

It is the naturally achieved glycerine content that makes handcrafted soap smooth and soft in texture, and even more moisturising than from the selected plant oil content. Glycerine is a humectant- attracting moisture to the skin. Technically, all handcrafted cold process soaps can be termed ‘glycerine soaps’. There is no such thing as 100% glycerine soap. On checking commercial soap labels, the glycerine will be listed in the descending order of ingredients as an additive- along with a lengthy list of petrochemical based ingredients. A transparent soap is a heavily processed soap.

It is the natural glycerine content of cold process soap attracting surrounding environmental moisture that can turn the soap to glug. It is important to keep the soap well drained and aired between uses. For this reason, ilo ORGANICS provides a small plastic drainer for use with our soaps.

ilo ORGANICS cut the solidified soap by hand, and allow the soap to harden through evaporation for up to 8 weeks, before packaging it. ilo ORGANICS handcrafted soaps achieve approximately 12% natural glycerine content- to lavish the skin with its supremely moisturising quality. The glycerine is identified as the clear, sticky component of the moistened soap.

Soaps made by the cold process method achieve an opaque smooth, even and creamy texture- that is relatively soft in comparison to commercially produced soaps. Handcrafted soaps made from pure plant oils using the cold process method don’t require preservatives. However, ilo ORGANICS recommends that the soaps be used within 12 months of purchase.

By using this manufacturing method, the soap-maker is required to be registered with NICNAS- the Government Department that soap-making is regulated by in Australia. If the soap-maker is not registered, they are in breach of NICNAS and ACCC requirements for the manufacturing and sale of soap.

HOT PROCESS METHOD

This method uses the same combination of a fatty acid with an alkali- as does the cold process method, but the mixture is then heated for several hours to remove most of the moisture content. The resultant mixture is a thick, translucent globular gel that is then forced into the moulds rather than poured. The heating of the soap mixture allows the soap to be used immediately after solidifying- reducing the manufacturing period considerably for the soap-maker. However, the applied heat destroys the beneficial qualities of the oils by destroying the natural oil acids.

Hot Processed soaps can be identified by their opaque and slightly globular texture.

By using this manufacturing method, the soap-maker is required to be registered with NICNAS in Australia.

MELT & POUR METHOD

The melt & pour method uses either soap pellets or soap blocks that are purchased from a commercial soap manufacturer. They are therefore generally based on a highly processed, petrochemical formed soap. The purchased soap form is then heated and melted, and various ingredients (natural herbs, goat milk powders, colour, fragrance, essential oils etc) are added to the soap mixture.

Because of this ‘handling’ of the mixture, the resultant soap is technically allowed to be termed ‘handmade’, but it is no better in quality than the basic commercially produced soap purchased.

Melt & Pour soaps can be readily identified by their usually decorative appearance- either being highly coloured, fragranced, and sometimes transparent or having gimmicky forms. This method also allows the soap-maker to not be registered with NICNAS- the Government Department that soap-making is regulated by in Australia- as they are technically not the manufacturer of the soap product.

COMMERCIALLY PRODUCED SOAP

Most commercially produced soaps are technically synthetic detergent bars. They are generally manufactured from synthesized petrochemicals- with numerous buffers and preservatives added to achieve various qualities of hardness, lather etc. More chemicals are added to hasten the processing time. Look at the ingredients listed on the packaging- if you can’t pronounce it, we doubt that it is desirable to be used on the skin. Ingredients are required to be listed in descending order by percentage of content. Natural additives usually appear low on the listing- indicating minimal content, and will therefore have very little impact in the formulation.

We have done a comprehensive analysis of the ingredients of most commercial soaps- clearly identifying what all the ingredients represent or their purpose. This analysis is available to peruse to anyone visiting us at Village Life Markets- prepare to be alarmed. The petrochemical cocktail contained in one popularly promoted brand as being a moisturising “beauty cream bar” is incredibly alarming- containing 26 ingredients. This soap currently achieves 22% of commercial soap sales around the world.

Again, ilo ORGANICS believes that informed people make informed decisions. Ilo ORGANICS handcrafted soaps contain 3 or more natural organic ingredients only, to gently cleanse and nurtue the skin. There are no chemicals, colourings or fragrances added.

COMMERCIALLY PRODUCED BODY WASHES & LIQUID SOAP

Most commercially produced body washes are made from petrochemicals, similarly as to commercial soap. They could be more aptly termed ‘body detergents’.

Due to successful marketing campaigns, they have achieved escalating sales in recent years- now holding 80% of market sales. Many companies have now ceased production of soap. Naming rights to some historical brands have been sold to companies in India and Asia. Check the labels for country of manufacture- it probably won’t be what you had assumed historically any more.

Body washes are cheaper for manufacturers to produce, and their successful marketing has misguidedly lead the consumer to believe that body washes are a superior and healthier product. Because of their fluid nature, more preservatives are required to sustain the product. They present a frightening chemical cocktail presented in yet another plastic container. The application of heat is required to manufacture liquid soap. This destroys any of the beneficial qualities in the ingredients.

ilo ORGANICS suggests that you carefully read the ingredients list of body washes. One popular brand promotes that it is “soap free- pH balanced- fragrance free- colour free- paraben free”, yet contains 16 ingredients- most of which are petrochemicals. It also uses a suspected mutagenic neurotoxin as one of its preservatives. This chemical is 100% absorbed through the skin, and banned from use in all other cosmetic products. Its use is allowed in body washes because of minimal skin contact time- but do you really want to risk it? 

Again, if you can’t pronounce it, do you really want to use it on your skin?