I’ve been into skincare for a long time. Seriously. Back when I was a young teen I participated in a Masonic organization called the Rainbow Girls. One of the meetings had a guest speaker who talked about skincare and how we should start moisturizing right now in order to have beautiful skin later. (she was talking to a group of teenaged girls like me!)
From that moment on I always used the same brand of lotion on my face and a few other products that were sold by that company at the time. As life continued on, I figured out that more body parts could use the same moisturizing and so began the life-long addiction to lotions! Lol
A couple of decades ago a house guest gave me a cold processed soap on a nice soap dish as a hostess gift – nice of them! It was so pretty that I hesitated using it for a looooong time. BUT…
Once I used it, I immediately fell in love with it, took it into my shower, and started showering daily with it. It didn’t take me long to notice that I was having to use less and less lotion the more I used that soap. At the time, I didn’t know the reasons behind that - I only know that it worked in helping me keep my skin moisturized.
Flash forward about 20 years and now I’m making cold-processed soaps on my own and I KNOW the reason behind it!
So, handcrafted soap has been around for centuries. A recipe for soap consisting of water, alkali, and cassia oil was discovered on a Babylonian clay tablet about 2200 BC.
(Here’s a YouTube video about how they made soap in ancient Syria - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPsYOnGPOZk )
Today’s recipes are not that different from then. We use water, fats, and lye to make soap, just the same as way back then. Different oils combine together to make a different feel or a different lather, but essentially, they all consist of the same 3 basic ingredients.
You might ask - "Why should I buy handmade soap when I can get a pack of 10 bars of Brand X at the grocery store for $3.99?"
Brand X manufacturers remove the glycerin from the soap!! What? That’s right, those big-time companies remove the moisturizing glycerin from the soap that they produce so that they can sell it to you in the form of lotion. 😊 Yep, they get to sell you 2 products instead of one! Nice! (Can you hear the sarcasm in that one word?)
You certainly could continue to buy a cheaper product that's full of artificial fillers, chemical hardeners and... well, just plain ucky stuff that melts away in a week. But if you care at all about what you put on your body, you probably don’t WANT ucky stuff! Read the labels, compare the bars, and really see what’s in both bars. Your skin will thank you. Your pocket book will thank you, too!
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