Defining natural soap

As defined at the starting page of this site, what I mean by “natural soap” is that it has been made from natural ingredients such as olive oil, goat milk etc. But the word “natural” can be used with many different meanings. As I frequently point out in this blog many commercial manufacturers use it purely as a buzzword, rather than having a whole lot to do with the actual ingredients in their products.

That said, even what I mean when I say natural soap does in some regards not fulfill the criteria some people might associate this word with either. Because of course there’s no such thing like trees or plants that grow little bars of soap out in the wild – arguably another possible definition of the word natural.

It may be that soap actually is generated by itself in nature every now and then, whenever ash and fat happen to get combined with each other. And if someone was to collect this soap I guess you could really refer to it as a product of nature. Although personally I am not so sure I would dare use soap that has been created under such spontaneous conditions.

What I am getting at here though is that homemade soap – even if created from purely natural ingredients – is as much a result of a chemical process as commercial soap is. Saponification is a chemical process, there’s simply no getting around that.

So are small soap manufacturers who are marketing their products as natural thus deceiving you? Or even worse, are you deceiving yourself?

Personally I don’t think so. Because, as I noted to begin with, even though we induce the chemical process of saponification in an artificial way, the natural ingredients used in the process are still natural – and that is really all we are claiming.

By making your own soap you do have more control over the quantity and quality of the chemicals that go into your soap. For example, someone who is a vegan can be sure that their soap really is 100% free from animal fats. In commercial bars of soap on the other hand sodium tallowate, saponified beef fat, is one of the most common ingredients.

If you have sensitive skin you can make fragrance and color free, superfatted soaps that are very gentle on your skin. You could further add natural products such as goat milk or honey, that could perhaps even be produced on farms geographically near you. A soap that is any closer to nature than that would be hard to imagine.

Treat the word natural as you wish, the long and the short if it is that anyone can quite easily create homemade soap to their own specifications. All you need to get started is a little bit of curiosity.

Getting started with making your own homemade soap is often somewhat of a big hurdle to get over  for a lot of people. You think it sounds complicated, fret about finding the “perfect” recipe and ingredients to start with, are afraid of making mistakes and so on.

But like with many other things in life, a big part of becoming successful with soap making is just showing up. Or as Carmen from the blog Old House Kitchen puts it:

“Making soap for the first time can be a bit scary.  I know…I’ve been there!  But once you have a batch or two under your belt it’s no big deal.  Really!  Especially if you have a partner in crime BFF to help you!”

She has posted a really nice pictorial about making homemade soap, along with a very basic recipe to get you started.

If you have though about making your own soap from scratch (with lye), but have gotten stuck in the procrastination stage I think you will find Carmen’s report very encouraging.

It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than this.

I have written about soap nuts as a potential variation on homemade laundry detergent earlier. The most typical question you get about these “nuts” is almost invariably: do they really work?

In short, yes they do. At least on moderately dirty laundry – which is what most modern people are washing most of the time anyway – the results are perfectly adequate.

But don’t take my word for it.

Nadiah from Playing Fair has done an extensive experiment on comparing fair trade soap nuts to regular detergent. Her conclusion is that:

“New Internationalist’s Soapnuts are at least half the price of normal laundry detergent, and they are natural, organic, biodegradeable, compostable, and WFTO recognised Fair Trade. Soapnuts also perform just as well as normal laundry detergent for most stains, and perform only slightly worse for bike chain grease. Consequently, the author recommends the use of soapnuts as an ethical and effective alternative to normal detergent for ordinary laundry washing.”

It should be perhaps be mentioned that the “ordinary” detergent she compares to is an eco friendly, fragrance free alternative so exactly how the nuts compare to some of the more mainstream detergents isn’t evaluated in this test.

But it is nonetheless a very good indication on what can be expected when using soap nuts on a daily basis.

If you want a second opinion (or is it third in this case?), Cityhippyfarmgirl has done a similar test. Answering the question whether soap nuts works like this:

Yep, they do. The clean just as well as any other laundry liquid I was using. There is no lingering soapy smell. There is a tiny and pleasant clean, fresh smell when I first get the washing out of the machine. You have to really stick your nose in the fibres to get it though and nothing residual once the clothing as dried. They also leave everything quite soft. No need for any fabric softners, (if you use it.)

If you want to find someone who has something negative to say about soap nuts I’m sure you’ll be able to find them. But it seems people in general are often quite happy with this eco friendly alternative.