Handmade Soap Benefits

Handmade Soap

Now that we've defined "natural soap" and briefly discussed the advantages and potential shortcomings of that craft, it remains to define and differentiate handmade soap, glycerine soap, handcrafted soap and homemade soap as opposed to natural soap.

Handmade Soap

While there may be differences of opinion re: the definition of handmade soap, for our purposes we differentiate between handmade soap and natural soap based on common usage as follows.  Natural soap usually means soap that has been made from the basic constituents in a small scale manufacturing operaton, sometimes on a kitchen stove.  While it is indeed handmade, we feel that in order to differentiate the various products the term handmade soap should have a more narrow definition.  Consequently, we acknowledge any product that is manufactured in a hands on operation as opposed to an automated factory production line as being handmade soap.

The handmade soap products usually incorporate one of more unique factors, including colour, clarity, packaging, various scents  or aromatherapy oils and often custom shapes. There is a category which I personally consider handcrafted which involves intricate shapes created by a combination of molding and hand carving of the soap base.  While these are obviously a handmade soap product, the handcrafted term differentiates the degree of hands on processing.  Often the category of handcrafted soap products are never used as a soap, but instead are a type of art.

Handmade soap on the other hand is meant to be used, and normally involves mixing of various scents and additives such as glycerine, various oils like emu oil etc into a molten soap base and pouring into custom molds.  With the addition of colouring these products are more attractive, better smelling and better for the skin than many commercial products.

Variables in the quality of handmade soap start with the selection and availability of a high quality base.  There are several different manufacturers of melt and pour bases, and in our experience there is a wide variation in the quality of the products.  Some handmade soap products are made with base material which we would reject based on scent, lack of clarity and often doubt as to whether the products used in the manufacture of the base may include animal fats.  All of our handmade soap is made with what we consider to be the best base available in the world.

Our handmade soap process then involves the careful selection of pleasing and / or aromatheraputic oils, oils which provide even better skin protection, colours and shapes.  All of our products are poured into our own molds which we made ourselves so that our product would be more unique and attractive than other handmade soaps.

We currently make 30 different soaps, all unique in scent, colour, additive and/or shape.  Our fragrant gems line of handmade soap consists of 14 of the most popular natural scents, in seven different colours.  The sensual essentials line includes four very popular scents, in fact they are the most popular of our scents.  The sensual line of handmade soap all has the general hand grip soap theme in it's shape, with relevant shapes embossed on the surface.

The Essentials line of handmade soaps are our aromatherapy products.  They all have unique shapes and cover the colour of the rainbow and each contains a unique combination of aromatherapy essential oils to provide certain aromatherapy benefits.

Glycerine Soap

Glycerine soap is another of those loose definitions which often confuse customers.  Glycerine of course is a natural oil which can be derived from either animal or vegetable sources.  In a soap it is desireable to some degree, because it acts as a moisturizer.  Both handmade soaps and natural soaps contain glycerine to a greater or lesser degree, and there is no actual measurement of how much glycerine content is required to consider a soap a glycerine soap.

Natural soap makers claim glycerine content between 2 and 8 percent, and some believe that this is a higher level of glycerine than found in the prepared soap bases.  In fact, the bases themselves usually contain more glycerine than the average natural soap, and glycerine content is accurately controlled.  In addition, handmade soap from a standard base may have glycerine added in the pouring process.

Glycerine soap which has too much glycerine can become ineffective for cleaning and leave one feeling oily, and it also become softer as the glycerine content increases.

We feel that for normal skin, our glycerine content of 12% is ideal, and when additional moisturizing is desired specifically for dry skin, psoriasis, eczema, and ash skin common in black skins types, we prefer to add emu oil because it has additional theraputic properties which glycerine does not have.