Which product would you rather use?

As I sit here in the studio I thought it would be fun to post a little about ingredients. I wanted to know which product you would rather purchase and use based solely on the ingredient list.

Product A: Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis Oil, Beeswax, Butyrospermum Parkii Fruit, Theobroma Cacao Seed Butter, Cocos Nucifera Oil, Ricinus Communis Seed Oil,  Tocopherol

Product B: Sweet Almond oil, Beeswax, Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Coconut Oil, Castor Oil, Vitamin E Oil

At a quick glance product B probably looks more appealing because you can instantly recognize all the ingredients. BUT what if I told you that they are the same product? That's correct, this is a lip balm that I make, for A, I used the INCI names and for B, I used the common (English) names which are easily recognized.

INCI stands for International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients and it is a system of names for waxes, oils, pigments, chemicals, and other ingredients of soaps, cosmetics, and the like, based on scientific names and other Latin and English words.

It is a system which is easily recognizable throughout the world so if you are shopping in the streets of Italy (lucky you) you can recognize ingredients in a product even if the rest of the label is in Italian.

So many times I hear people say "I won't use a product if I can't recognize or pronounce the names of the ingredients" and so many times they are referring to the INCI names which look strange and foreign, unless you were a Latin major or a chemist in college. While I understand the thought behind that of not wanting to put potentially dangerous chemicals on one's self just remember that sometimes you cannot pronounce or recognize a name simply because it is in Latin. Case in point, the INCI name for Shea Butter is Butyrospermum Parkii Fruit, something I certainly cannot pronounce and would never guess except that I deal with these ingredients daily.

So there you have it, INCI is not scary, it just takes a little research to know what the ingredients are when they are labelled accordingly.

Here is a helpful link to INCI names for your reference: http://www.oshun.ca/inci.html

Rock on my friends
~ Your Soapsmith

Hair care pantry raid!

While surfing the net I came across some fun home hair care recipes. With the fun of summer and heading to the beach and pool you will need to give your hair some extra love to keep it from becoming too dry and damaged.

There are many items that you will find in your kitchen that can provide some great nourishment and only take a few minutes to make. I found a nice one on youtube that includes one of my favorite ingredients, avocado! I love all things avocado, I love to eat it, put the oil in my soap and wear it in my hair. This fruit has so many benefits it's crazy, another blog I came across described it as the world's most complete food. Avocados are deeply penetrating and rich in vitamins A and D, lecithin, potassium as well as vitamin E

Here is the recipe for the whipped avocado hair treatment:
1 pitted avocado
1/2 can coconut milk
1 oz coconut oil
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp honey
2 oz pure aloe
1 tsp castor oil (you can sub almond, grapeseed or more olive oil for castor if you don't have any)

Place all ingredients in the blender and whip until it has the consistency of a mousse. Once that is complete, you can put treatment in your hair, using a comb may help. Leave on for 10-15 minutes, put hair in plastic shower cap if you have one, then rinse out in lukewarm water, you can shampoo if you'd like to or skip the shampoo and simply condition for the ultimate treat.

A really simple treat that you may like is an olive oil mask. That's it, just olive oil, warm it slightly (not hot) and start at the ends of your hair working to your scalp. Give your scalp a good massage and leave the olive oil on at least 15 minutes but you can leave it on up to an hour before rinsing out, shampoo and condition as normal.

Have some hair product build-up? Mix baking soda with some water and rinse through your hair. About 1 1/4 tbsp per 1 c water should do it, you can clean and style as normal.

*This was part of my original blog notes from 2011. Since then I have learned more about the hair and it's pH. I left the note in for people to read but no longer recommend alkaline products for haircare (anything above a pH of 7, including handmade soap). The hair is typically an acidic pH in the 4.5 to 5.5 range. Unlike the skin it cannot adjust it's pH if it is taken out of range. For this reason I recommend Hair Care products that are properly formulated for hair or ingredients that fall within a pH range that will compliment the hair. ~April 26, 2020

Do you love eggs......from your head down to your legs? Well maybe you will after this treatment. Eggs are packed with nutrients, protein and lecithin all ingredients that your hair wants and needs. I found a couple of treatments using eggs to help make your hair shiny and beautiful, a couple of sources also sited that it will make your hair grow faster but I have my doubts since hair growth and hair patterning is genetic and body dependent.

This simple recipe calls for 1-2 egg yolks (depending on hair length) and 1 tbsp of honey. Honey is a humectant and will draw moisture to your hair, this is not great for all hair types because some hair will just become puffy and frizzy, usually hair with tight spiral curls will become too frizzy, you can just skip the honey and do the egg portion. Work the egg mixture onto your hair massaging your scalp well, rinse off after about 10-15 minutes make sure to use warm water so to not cook the eggs (yikes!) Shampoo and condition as normal, this can be done as often as once per week.

Some essential oils can be added to any of these treatments, some that are great for hair are tea tree, rosemary, peppermint and lavender, click here for more information on their benefits. When using essential oils it is important to know that they should never be used directly on your skin, always mix with a carrier oil. Also some essential oils should not be used on people with certain health conditions, including pregnancy and epilepsy, please consult a physician with questions.

Alright, go raid your pantry and have a good time!!!

Yours in shiny hair
~Soapsmith

Cold Processed, milled, and rebatched soaps, what's the difference?

We have run into questions on different soap making processes a few times so I thought it would be nice to put a post together about the differences.

cold process soap

Cold process soap is soap made without adding much additional heat in order to reach saponification. Once the soap goes through saponification and cools off (24-48 hours) it is ready to be cut and then cure for anywhere from 3-6 weeks depending on the recipe and climate in which it is curing. Before I get ahead of myself saponification is the chemical reaction in which oils (acids) and sodium hydroxide or lye (the base) mix together into an emulsion to become soap. The soap making process creates its own heat in an exothermic reaction, it's really neat to put a fresh batch of soap into a mold and check on it a little later, sometimes it gets REALLY hot and sometimes not so much, again it all depends on the recipe and other variables. I really enjoy watching a creation incubate into the final product.

French milled soap

Milled, French milled or hand-milled soap is something different. We have all most likely seen milled soap before, it is generally a very shiny hard bar. Milled soaps are not the same as a basic cold process soap. The maker takes fresh cold process soap and the natural glycerine is removed from it and it is processed through a large machine in which rollers flatten the soap into paper thin pieces. Next it is shredded and put through the rollers multiple times so that all the shredded pieces are ground back together. This mixture finally goes through an extruding machine which finally spits out a bar of compacted soap flakes. If you are looking for a natural product, this is not for you. Milled soaps are made primarily with beef tallow as many commercial soaps are as well as added synthetic ingredients which helps to give it the pretty shiny appearance. The synthetics also give it flexibility so that it can survive the rolling machines. The glycerine, which is a natural by product of soap making, is removed because it would gum up the equipment too much. On it's best day hand milled "soap" is nothing more than a laboratory imitation of the real and good thing.

Re-batched soap

Rebatched soap it sort of a marriage between cold process soap and milled soap. Rebatched soap is made when a soap maker takes a cold processed soap and shreds it up. There are no rollers or glycerine removal involved in this process. The soap is simply shredded, re-melted and remolded. There are various reasons why a soap maker would re batch a soap, sometimes the fragrance that they wanted to use is too fragile to with stand the soap making process or they want to use an expensive oil whose benefits would not be able to withstand saponification so they make their recipe then shred it down to add the extras.

So there you have it, three slight variations on the bar soap making process. Here at Soapsmiths we make cold process soaps from high quality oils, butters, essential & fragrance oils and other great skin loving additives, it's our favorite way to make a good quality product.

Toodles for now
~ Your Soapsmith

Resources: The Natural Soap Book, making herbal and vegetable soaps by: Susan Miller Cavitch