Honey & Oatmeal Soap, Yumm

I've just finished wrapping my natural honey & oatmeal palm oil free soaps ready to take with me to show my girlfriends next week when I catch up with them.  I hope they like the packaging.  I love this simple yet exquisitely moisturising soap made up of local Australian honey, oatmeal, saponified: olive oil; coconut oil; rice bran oil and cocoa butter.  It is not fragranced by any essential oils but I can definitely smell the cocoa butter and there is very light aroma of honey.  I first made a similar bar some 7/8 years ago for my husband to use with his dry skin.  I also suffer from dry skin patches and find this bar really moisturises  my skin.  Over the years I've tweaked and adapted the original recipe until I am happy with the one I have now.  Unlike many large companies that mass produce soap, I make my soap using the cold pressed method,  because of this, glycerin a natural by product of the saponification process is retained in my soaps and not removed to be used in other products.



This soap is good enough to eat so to be on the safe side I made sure I placed a label on the back clearly stating "Do not eat" :-)

Too Much Lye Is Never A Good Thing

It doesn't matter whether you are an experienced or newbie soap maker, what matters is how accurately you measure your ingredients particularly when making cold pressed soap.I realised after measuring some of my ingredients for my last batch of honey & oatmeal soap that my electronic scales were playing up.  I hoped for the best and chose to keep soaping.

Yuck, look at what my end result was.  Too much lye in the mixture resulted in something that was very brittle and unpleasant, definitely too harsh to use on the skin as it is.  My trusty old scales have now been sent to greener pastures and a shiny new set are waiting to be used.

Baby Shower Soaps All Wrapped & Ready To Go

Well the time has come to share pictures of the soaps and tea baths I made for my niece to give as thank you gifts for her baby shower..  I've been patient, truly I have and only snuck a peak at them once or twice while they were curing.  The cupcake soaps had a rattle stuck in the top and the bars of soaps were wrapped in 'nappies'.  All were made using vegetable oils, Essential Oils and natural colourants.

Infusing Oil - Natural Colourants

Ooh,  I'm very excited to share this photo of natural colourants infused in olive oil.  I love the range of colours and hues produced by a variety of herbs, spices and clays.

Later today I plan to test these in my basic soap recipe as I am curious to see if the colours will hold up during the soap making process.  So far I have infused the following colourants:  activated charcoal, ground coffee,  powdered rosehips, calendula petals, cocoa powder, French red clay, parsley, powdered indigo,  turmeric, paprika,  cayenne pepper,  spirulina & cinnamon.

Why I Choose To Make My Soaps Palm Oil Free

 To use palm oil or not is a debate that people in the soaping community have some strong views about, as I personally experienced whilst on holiday in Queensland a few months ago.  I was visiting a well known tourist area  in the tropical rainforest region and spotted a store that sold handmade soap and other toiletries.   I love trying other handmade and supporting small businessesproducts and I was looking at the products when the store owner approached me.

As usual they gave the usual spiel about how the soaps were made from hand etc and when asked what method was used to make the soap, I was promptly told "that it was by a little old method that I wouldn't know about called cold process soap making".  Now I was raised to be polite, but they really made my ears prick up and my nostrils flare at  the condescending attitude of store owner.  I thought keep calm and ask if they stocked any palm oil free soap.  Big mistake,  I was  subjected to another discussion about how cold process soap could not be made without the use of palm oil, how they use palm oil sourced from sustainable sources.  Great news that they use sustainable oil but no where did they have this advertised whether on their packaging or elsewhere.  I know it's not mandatory but if they are going to be passionate about using sustainable palm oil wouldn't you think they would advertise it?

 I couldn't believe how much ill informed information I was hearing. I had had enough and decided that it was time to tell  the person that indeed I did know about the cold process soap making and that it is possible to make palm oil free soap. The picture attached to this post is an example of a palm oil free soap I made using olive oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter, rice bran oil and turmeric as a colourant.

 I have been making cold pressed soap since 2007 and started out using palm oil in my soap.  Over the years however,  I became aware of issues relating to the over exploitation of palm oil plantations in Borneo and Sumatra in South East Asia such as  mass deforestation,  species such as Orangutans and the Sumatran Tigers being  threatened with extinction.  Not to mention the exploitation of the indigenous communities and loss of their lands.

There are on the other hand, convincing arguments for using sustainable palm oil.  For example, that soap makers contribute to only 1% of all palm oil consumption and that per unit area, palm oil makes 10 times the amount of oil as soybeans,  grapeseeds or sunflowers, it is therefore in some ways more environmentally friendly.

So why use palm oil in soap making?  Not only does palm oil  add firmness to a bar of soap, it also contains conditioning properties for the skin.  These can also be achieved by using oils such as rice bran, and coconut oil.

Palm oil is now the most widely used vegetable oil and can be found in so much processed food As well as a plethora of other products such as shampoo.  Take a look when next out shopping at the ingredients label and see how it is used even in pastry products.  Can I make a difference? I hope so.  It  is for this reason that I have decided to make palm oil free products.

If you are buying hand made soap and other products, I encourage you to choose ones that are either palm oil free or at least ones that confirm only sustainable palm oil is used in the making of the products.