What exactly is soap?

So what is soap? Is it the stuff in a bottle that says "Antibacterial" on it? Is it that pressed funky shaped bar from the grocery store that comes in box, 8 to a package? How about that clear bar of stuff in fruity flavors that's supposed to be good for my face? Or better yet, its that stuff we put into laundry to get our clothes clean, right? There is a lot of confusion today about what soap really is.

Its time to do a little myth busting here. The true definition of a soap is that it is a mixture of an acid (fats and oils) that react with a base (sodium or potassium hydroxide) to form soap and glycerin. GASP! You mean you're rubbing fat all over your skin? Well, no. Once the mixture has gone through the soap making chemical reaction, known as saponification, it is no longer just fats and lye.. its a great bar of handmade soap that your skin is going to love. A truly accomplished soapmaker knows how do the research to take a blend of oils to get their best skin attributing properties and turn them into a bubbly bar of soap full of lather. Finding a good blend of oils is both an art as well as a science, honestly.

So is that stuff at the grocery store really soap? Well, look at the label. The FDA says that only real soap made by the above process can be labelled as such. The others on the shelf are synthetic detergents. Detergents are made from chemicals and things that are hard to pronounce. They can be very drying and irritating to the skin, and leave a sticky film around the tub. Soap by its very nature is antibacterial as well - but that's a science lesson for another day.