INGREDIENTS WE USE, AND WHY
We fell in love with making and using our products before we ever decided to sell them to others, as we have always felt it is important to not only recognize an ingredients list, but to understand why those ingredients are used. We invite you to learn more about many of our favorite ingredients below. Please note, in today’s world, in order to make a claim about the benefits of a product, the FDA and a variety of government agencies require studies be submitted to support the claim of benefit. Thus – these products, and the ingredients in them, are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. All we can tell you are our personal experiences and what we have learned about the historic use of these ingredients in our products, and ask you to try them out for yourself to feel the difference in you skin, we know we’ve seen a difference.
OILS AND BUTTERS
Olive Oil: A perfect moisturizer, olive oil makes a hard, long lasting soap with a gentle cleansing lather, suitable for all skin types including sensitive skins. High in Oleic acid, a soap made with olive oil will help to condition and soften your skin.
Coconut Oil: Coconut oil is a very popular soapmaking oil because it helps create hard bars with fluffy, stable lather. This oil is full of antioxidants and is composed of healthy saturated fats and vitamins like vitamin E, amino acids, lauric acid, and caprylic acid.
Mango Seed Butter: This butter is similar in consistency to shea butter, except mango butter moisturizes without greasiness. Mango butter helps with the hardness of the soap, and it adds luxurious conditioning and moisturizing values as well.
Rice Bran Oil: Rich in vitamin E and antioxidants, Rice bran oil has a thick and moisturizing consistency that's similar to olive oil.
Palm Oil: Palm oil is a great way to hydrate, moisturize, and protect dry skin. The oil protects against the temperature and dryness of the air around you to keep your skin fresh. It also helps as an anti-aging supplement. Palm oil soap refreshes your skin and helps it maintain its elasticity. Suitable for use on sensitive skin, it effectively nourishes areas affected by eczema, psoriasis, and stretch marks. The antioxidant properties of Palm Oil boost immunity and delay the onset of wrinkles.
Please note: This oil is used in limited quantities and is sustainably sourced for our bars.
Castor Oil: Castor oil is an extremely unique fixed oil. It has a thick and viscous texture and a slight odor. In cold process soap, it contributes to large bubbles and is known for its cleansing properties. Castor oil is thought to encourage hair growth, and adds a shiny quality in skincare products.
Lard/Tallow: Lard makes a very mild, conditioning soap that is great for your skin.
Beeswax: Beeswax helps to create harder bars. At small amounts, it can add firmness and silky texture to the soap while not affecting lather. Beeswax has fantastic skin-softening properties and enhances skin elasticity, helping reduce the signs of aging. Beeswax is naturally anti-allergenic, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, antibacterial and germicidal.
Cocoa Butter: Cocoa butter is high in fatty acids and hydrates the skin deeply, making it a wonderful addition to skincare products, soaps and shampoos. It contains oleic, stearic and palmitic acids all of which are beneficial for nourishing the skin.
Shea Butter: Shea butter is a wonderful ingredient to use in soap making as it makes the soap super creamy and moisturizing. Its fatty acid profile is made up of 5% palmitic, 40% stearic, 48% oleic and 6% linoleic. This means it helps to harden soap, whilst creating a creamy and highly conditioning lather.Shea Butter moisturizes pores without clogging them.
Powders and additives
Spinach Powder: Many have found that spinach contains pigments that can help protect your body from UV light and reduce the potential for cell damage. Also, using spinach in a face wash is thought to be useful for fighting acne, as the herb can help remove the grime and impurities that could clog your pores.
Green Zeolite Clay: Green Zeolite Clay comes from volcanic rock that is naturally high in minerals. This clay is useful for people with oily and mixed skin. This clay is famous for its powerful healing action, deep detoxification and purification properties. It cleanses, exfoliates, smooths and softens the skin, re-mineralizes the tissues and heals acne, scrapes or burns.
Madder Root Powder: Manjishtha, also known as Indian Madder, is an Ayurvedic herb that has a bright red hue symbolic of its blood purifying and detox benefits. The herb has also been used to treat various skin concerns and is useful also for brightening the complexion. The herb is enriched with a compound called Alizarin which is an effective anti-bacterial. Application of Manjistha is known to soothe dry skin, allergies, and any kind of rash or inflammation.
Tussah Silk: These silk fibers come from silkworm cocoons after the worms have emerged. The silk adds a luxurious, soft feeling to the soap, better lather, and shine to the bars.
Zinc Oxide: This powder helps protect cells from being damaged, slows the aging process, and prevents skin dryness by filtering out the harmful UV rays.
Activated Charcoal: Not only does it exfoliate and reduce inflammation, but charcoal can also absorb toxins and excess oil. Soaps with charcoal help reduce breakouts and pore size, give skin a healthy glow, and help prevent signs of premature aging—especially when used regularly.
Arrowroot powder: In creams and lotions, it helps brighten and mattify the texture. Arrowroot has also proven helpful in products that cater to oily, sensitive, and acne-prone skin. When combined with essential oils, arrowroot powder can also help mask odors, so is used in our deodorants.
Colloidal Oatmeal: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officially categorized colloidal oatmeal as a skin protectant in 2003. It boasts anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties that benefit your skin. Antioxidants fight free radicals, which can damage your body through oxidative stress if their numbers become too high. It’s considered an emollient — a substance that softens or soothes the skin — because it packs fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients shown to benefit the skin. This ingredient is typically recommended for those with eczema.
Bentonite Clay: Bentonite clay is created from volcanic ash. The U.S. is the top producer of bentonite clay, with much of the production happening in Wyoming. In bath and beauty products, bentonite clay gives products a nice “slip.” This texture is great for shaving soaps, as it helps the razor glide over the skin. It has strong oil absorbing properties, and is able to absorb more than its mass in water. This makes bentonite clay a great choice for very oily skin.
Rose Kaolin Clay: Rose clay is considered a type of kaolin (kaolinite) clay. It has a fine texture like kaolin, and is suitable for dry and sensitive skin. The clay is a light to medium pink shade, which comes from a naturally occurring iron oxide. In some projects, it can take on a deep red color or an orange hue. Rose clay makes a fantastic soap additive for both color and gentle oil absorbing properties.
Sorbitol: A kind of alcohol sugar, Sorbitol locks moisturizing properties and fragrances into the soap. Enhances the bubbliness of soap.
Sodium Lactate: A salt, sodium lactate produces a harder, longer-lasting bar of soap.
Honey: Sourced from a local beekeeper, honey is antimicrobial in soap, It also imparts a light, warm, sweet scent, the added sugar content helps increase the lather, and acts as a humectant.