How your bar of soap was made.

Have you ever wondered how your humble bar of natural soap was made?

We make all our soap (and our other skin and hair care products) ourselves from scratch, from plant-based ingredients. 

We use the traditional "cold process" method for our soap. Here's an outline of the process we follow from initial idea to final product:

-after brainstorming, research and discussion we come up with an idea for a new variety. This is often influenced by requests from you.
- we try out some essential oil blends until we get a scent that we both love.
- we work out the recipe / quantities / percentages needed
- we make a test batch of the new soap. It's a bit like baking. All the ingredients need to be measured out carefully and temperatures have to be accurate. Plant oils/butters are melted down and mixed together. A Lye solution is added and when the lye meets the oils a reaction occurs that starts the saponification process. Molecules from the lye buddy up with molecules from the oils and by the end of the process there is no lye left -just beautiful soap! At different points in the process flowers, roots, leaves, seeds, clays and essential oils may be added for colour, texture and scent as well as for their beneficial properties.
- We pour it into wooden moulds, wrap it in blankets to keep it warm and put it in an insulated box or cupboard. 
- 48 hours later we unmould the soap, trim it, cut it into logs and put it in a warm room to finish curing.

- after a minimum of 4 weeks it is the moment of truth! Beautiful soap....usually! Again, it's a bit like baking and sometimes it goes wrong! We feel it, smell it, use it, give it to family and friends to try.
- if we're happy with it, we send all the information off to a chartered chemist to be safety assessed. If not, it's back to the drawing board to work out why and we start again.
- Once we have been sent our safety certificate we can make a larger batch of soap which we will sell when it's ready.
It's a long process but it's worth it! The final product is a thing of beauty and it is very satisfying slicing through freshly cured soap, seeing the inner colour for the first time and releasing the wonderful scent.

If you want to find out more about our soaps and the ingredients in them, as well as how we make our other products, head over to our "how it's made" page.