I happened to be doing a little web browsing this morning and came across another soap blogger's blog that I thought was very interesting. Valerie, at Real.Simple.Soap., posted about having visited a local Lush store at the mall and how she started reading the ingredients on their soap when the clerk approached her and tried to educate her on their "natural" products, etc., etc. You can read her post here: (http://realsimplesoap.blogspot.com/2009/03/little-consumer-deception.html) You know the type I’m talking about. We all (that is, soapers) have visited these type of stores at one time or another just to check things out.
I, too, have tried to educate these clerks and it’s like they’ve been brainwashed by the company into believing their products are truly all natural and good for you. I’ve gotten so frustrated some times trying to talk to these young ladies, but they look at you like you’re some kind of nut and try to keep you quiet so the other customers don’t hear you. (I actually spoke loud on purpose.) It’s really not their fault. They’re mostly young girls who are very impressionable and are just doing their job, as per the company for whom they work.
I had a request from a customer last year who wanted to buy a few things for her niece for Christmas. The niece was in love with Lush products and my customer wanted me to make a body butter like Lush. I went to Lush’s website to check this particular item out and was mortified at what I found. Needlesstosay, I reported back to my customer that I would make a body butter with a similar scent, but that it would not be like Lush. It would be much better. And believe it or not, her neice really liked the product.
How do they get away with this type of advertising is beyond me. If it were you or I advertising like that with all those chemicals, the hounddogs would be all over us. Lush is not the only one out there making all these claims though. Have you ever read the ingredient list on BBW's hand cream? I have and half of the stuff I had to look up to find out what it really was. Like Valerie, I was amazed at what I found. And right after that long list of ingredients, they state "finished product is not tested on animals." But they bottle and market it for human use! Amazing!
You and I, as consumers and/or soapmakers, need to educate ourselves and others. We need to make people think and be well informed when making purchases that effect our overall health and well being.
Thanks, Valerie, for your information!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Does It Really Lather????
I get this question and others all the time about my handmade soaps, especially at shows. I’m not sure why people think it doesn’t lather. In fact, depending on the oils used, some of them really make a lot of suds.
Does your soap contain lye? Yes. You cannot achieve real soap without it. Oil (fatty acids) and water do not mix, so you need an alkali (lye) to achieve this. Soapmaking is a chemical reaction.
When made properly, no lye remains in the finished product.
Not all handmade soaps are created equal, though. The percentages of oils used are extremely important to produce a mild and gentle soap so as not to be too harsh on the skin. Once someone has tried handmade soap, there's no going back to that other stuff.
Why does handmade natural soap cost so much?
Well, the ingredients used to produce our handmade soaps are quality ingredients. Making natural soap can be very labor intensive, especially when making and designing soaps such as Bourne In Style soaps.
Secondly, what are you comparing our handmade soap to? Our soaps are priced very competitively with other natural soaps. It's more expensive than commercial soaps but most commercial soaps extract many of the most useful ingredients in their soap while producing thousands of pounds of soap at the same time. For instance, glycerin, which is important for moisturizing your skin, is extracted from commercial soaps and sold to other manufacturers to put in their lotions and creams to treat the conditions commercial soaps can cause in the first place. So if you use commerical soap which creates a skin condition, then buy a product to treat that condition, you've generally spent more than you would have had you bought our handmade soap in the first place.
So, yes, it does lather, it's made with lye, but it's cheaper in the long run and much better for your skin.
So lather up, "in style"!
Does your soap contain lye? Yes. You cannot achieve real soap without it. Oil (fatty acids) and water do not mix, so you need an alkali (lye) to achieve this. Soapmaking is a chemical reaction.
When made properly, no lye remains in the finished product.
Not all handmade soaps are created equal, though. The percentages of oils used are extremely important to produce a mild and gentle soap so as not to be too harsh on the skin. Once someone has tried handmade soap, there's no going back to that other stuff.
Why does handmade natural soap cost so much?
Well, the ingredients used to produce our handmade soaps are quality ingredients. Making natural soap can be very labor intensive, especially when making and designing soaps such as Bourne In Style soaps.
Secondly, what are you comparing our handmade soap to? Our soaps are priced very competitively with other natural soaps. It's more expensive than commercial soaps but most commercial soaps extract many of the most useful ingredients in their soap while producing thousands of pounds of soap at the same time. For instance, glycerin, which is important for moisturizing your skin, is extracted from commercial soaps and sold to other manufacturers to put in their lotions and creams to treat the conditions commercial soaps can cause in the first place. So if you use commerical soap which creates a skin condition, then buy a product to treat that condition, you've generally spent more than you would have had you bought our handmade soap in the first place.
So, yes, it does lather, it's made with lye, but it's cheaper in the long run and much better for your skin.
So lather up, "in style"!
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