What's different about handmade soap compared to grocery store soap?

All soap is a combination of some kind of fat (vegetable oils, lard or tallow) with some kind of liquid (water or milk), which are chemically mixed using sodium hydroxide or lye. The chemical result is a bar of soap that contains basically two things: a salt detergent to clean, and glycerin to moisturize. Now here's the important part.

During World War II, commercial soapmakers learned how to extract the glycerin which naturally resulted from the soapmaking process while the batter was still soft. From this time on, soap purchased in grocery and drug stores were composed of 'salt detergent' with little or no glycerin for moisturization. Instead, glycerin was repackaged and sold to consumers as a skin lotion and moisturizer, which is a very profitable venture for most manufacturers. They sell us one product to strip our skin of our natural oils, and then another to replace the moisture taken away by the first product.

The main difference with our handmade soap is that we're not out in the Shed extracting all the glycerin from our soap before we sell it. Your skin won't feel itchy and dry after using our soap. Our soap has all the glycerin still in it, and there's a lot of glycerin created by all the great oils, butters and milks we use, along with the terrific recipes we created. To learn more about how we create all that glycerin, take a look at our Ingredients page.