I've been cooking for what feels like all day...so I thought I would sit down, relax, and blog. I've been meaning to do this post for a couple of years but it always got away from me.
Years ago, I started to get into natural soaps. It started with wanting to try all of the Nubian Heritage (back then a black owned company). It was the first soap that made me realize that you can use soap that was completely natural.
In between I would still use a lot of commercial soap/body washes.
Then I moved onto Lush soaps. They definitely weren't all natural...but the concepts and looks of the soaps were so fun, they were hard to resist. I had a lot of fun trying and reviewing them, although most of them were a miss for me.
I went back to commercial soaps again for a little while, I would pick up stuff from TJ Max. Mostly I would try to buy soaps from around the world. That was fun too.
Until I found a completely natural soap sources inside my local health stores/certain grocery stores. Then I switched almost completely, with only a couple of strays every now and again.
Here's what I like/dislike about natural soaps.
1. Looks- Handmade soaps can be any color under the sun, with seed/herb additives. They definitely look much more fun that your regular dove/dial/ivory bars. As far as shower gels..they come in fun colors, but still don't come close to the uniqueness of some natural soaps I have seen.
2. Ingredients- Natural handmade soaps are mostly completely natural and they use all kinds of skin loving butters/milks/oils. I love using things I can easily recognize and prefer to use natural ingredients on my skin where possible. Of course, it's all down to preference and some people feel completely opposite. Some people's skin prefer synthetic ingredients and that's OK. For me, I like natural ingredients like Coconut Oil, Shea Butter, Castor Oil and on and on.
3. Less Plastic Waste- Plastic waste is a huge problem. Recycling plastic definitely helps. But plastic can only be re-used a certain amount of times before you can't reuse it anymore. Using bar soaps that come in paper/cardboard packaging definitely helps-every little bit helps!
4. Easy travel- You don't have to worry about any liquid restrictions or spills when you use a solid bar of soap.
5. Natural Scents- Not all handmade soaps are made with essential oils BUT many are. With the ones that are, you get the extra aromatherapy benefits of the essential oil. You won't find a commercial soap/body wash scented with only essential oils. I'll still use a fragrance oil soap, although they probably aren't as healthy for you as essential oil soap.
6. You aren't paying for Water- Body Washes main ingredients is water. With soap...you're paying for pure soap.
7. No preservative- Because there's no water, no preservative is required. So many of your other body products use preservatives, I don't avoid them entirely but I do try to minimize them where I can.
1. Soap Scum- Using natural soaps mean soap scum builds up and sticks to the shower/bath tub much quicker than soaps that contain ingredients like Tetrasodium EDTA, or EDTA's. Shower Gels/body washes are formulated to wash down the drain completely. It's definitely my least favorite thing about natural soaps but I just suck it up and clean the shower more.
2. Melt Quickly- Unless you are using a triple milled bar, natural bar soaps tend to melt down quickly. It doesn't matter if you keep it out of the water or let it dry between uses. It melts down fast. Which brings me into...
3. Price- Natural handmade soaps are expensive. They have better quality ingredients and are made by a soap artisan. That costs money. It's not your industrially made/cheap ingredients mass produced bar. It sucks that it melts so quickly at the prices you pay, but I still keep purchasing.
4. Still Drying- A lot of soap sellers will sell their soaps as higher quality ingredients and tell you due to the ingredients it won't dry your skin. No lotion required. That's not true. I find many of the them to be drying/not moisturizing and follow up rub down with lotion/body butter/oil is necessary.
And...that's all.
What do you use? What's your preference?
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