You use basically the same ingredients for all of your products. Why are the prices so different from soap bar to soap bar or lotion to lotion?
Pricing is based on the quantity and type of ingredients used in the product.
We pride ourselves in obtaining the highest quality ingredients, at the best prices, to produce a product that we are pleased with – before it is offered to our customers.
What this means is that all of our oils, FOs, EOs, additives and colorants used to produce our products are purchased from reputable suppliers. The costs of the ingredients varies from supplier to supplier and these prices are based on what volumes they can purchase in to pass savings on to their customers (us). Prices are based on quality, purity, and volume purchased. Some fragrances and essential oils are more expensive than others because of their composition and rarity.
Time is another factor in handcrafting products. Some are just more labor intensive than others. For example: A batch of soap containing multiple colors and designs will take longer to make than a batch with no designs.
Fragrance (FO) and Essential Oils (EO)
Essential oils are natural oils extracted from the fruit, stem, leaf, flower and/or root of a plant. They may be extracted by steam distillation, cold pressing, or by using solvents.
Fragrance Oils can be a mixture or combination of mixtures of natural and synthetic materials. Synthetic ingredients are manufactured through chemical process. They are "man-made".
We will use a straight essential oil (such as Tea Tree Oil), or a blend of essential oils (like Lemongrass and Sage) in our products. We may also use fragrance oils or a combination of fragrance oils and essential oils to produce our products.
What kind of soap do you make?
We make cold process (CP) and sometimes hot process (HP) soap. Both processes are handmade and produced through the saponification process.
What is the difference between cold process and hot process soap?
Cold process (CP) soap is made using water, lye, oils, and fragrances or other additives. It is called cold processing because the lye water and oils are mixed or blended together at approximately the same temperature, usually around 100 degrees and are allowed to process through the saponification process naturally. The other ingredients are added when the mixture reaches trace. Trace is about the consistency of a medium thick gravy. All of the ingredients are mixed thoroughly and poured into a mold. The mixture is allowed to naturally proceed through the saponification process to produce soap. As this happens, the soap mixture will harden allowing it to be removed from the mold to be cut into bars, usually within 24 hours. The bars will then be allowed to cure for 4 to 6 weeks before use.
Hot process (HP) soap is soap that is made in the exact same fashion as CP soap but is introduced to heat, either by placing in a crock-pot or on a double boiler. The additional heat speeds up the saponification process. The fragrances and essential oils are added after it has cooked for a while. Then it is placed in a mold and allowed to finish hardening. The appeal for HP soap is that it is ready to use much sooner that a CP soap.
What is Saponification?
Saponification is the name given to the chemical reaction by which an alkali (usually sodium hydroxide - also called caustic soda or lye) reacts with fats and oils to make soap.
Your soap is made with lye. Will it hurt me?
Soap is a result of a chemical reaction between lye, fat and water. In 24hrs, you no longer have lye, fat and water - you have soap.
Isn’t lye hazardous to use?
As with all hazardous items, it can be very dangerous. We take every precaution when working with lye while making soap.
What kind of oils and butters do you use?
We use a combination of butters and oils in our products. Our oils are Coconut, Olive, Castor, Soybean, Sunflower, Safflower, Grapeseed, and Canola. Our butters are Shea, Cocoa, Sal, and Mango.
When we develop a product, each oil, butter, fragrance or essential oil is carefully chosen based on its own qualities and how well it will interact with the other ingredients to produce the desired result in the final product.