Soap is created by a chemical reaction of oils and alkali. (In other words, you can’t make soap without oils and alkali—commonly referred to as lye; water helps facilitate the process, though technically you don’t have to have it to produce the chemical reaction that creates soap.) The method we use to make our soap at Barcelona Bath & Body is called cold-process and some people refer to this type of soap as natural soap or lye soap.
Some people are concerned when they hear the word lye due to some misinformation that has circulated on the internet or even flashbacks to their Granny’s lye soap that reportedly took their hide off; but all true soap is made with lye. I have to believe that my grandmother made a nice bar of soap as no lore like this exists in my family. I suppose that soapmaking is like cooking, where neither recipes nor cooks are all created equal.
The key is that a properly formulated bar of soap is superfatted; in other words, once all the lye has been used up in the chemical reaction, there’s still a little fat left over which creates a gentle, moisturizing soap bar that doesn’t strip oil from the skin. No lye (sodium hydroxide) remains in our finished bar of soap and neither is there excess superfat which can become rancid and/or make a soft bar of soap.
Much of what we think of as “soap” on the commercial market today is really detergent bars which many people find drying. However, real soap contains no detergent.
Unfortunately, many large–scale manufacturers who make real soap remove the glycerin which is a natural moisturizing ingredient created by the chemical reaction that makes soap. Large-scale manufacturers think of it as a byproduct and profit center, so they extract it from the soap and sell it to the lotion-making industry.
As a small-scale, boutique manuacturer of real soap, we prefer to think of glycerin as a humectant or moisture–attracting ingredient, and we leave it in the soap so your skin can receive the full benefit of not only getting clean and smelling good, but also being moisturized.
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Tags: Handcrafted Soap, Handmade Soap, Lye Soap, Natural Soap, Olive Oil, Shea Butter
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Dear Barcelona BB,
Do your soaps contain SLS?
Thank-you,
Mrs. Richard
Hi Debbie,
Thanks for your question. I believe you’re referring to Sodium Lauryl Sulphate or Sodium Laureth Sulfate which are detergents.
Barcelona Bath & Body soap is real soap that we make from scratch using the cold-process method described above and it contains no detergents. Soap by definition contains no detergents; however, there are many detergent bars on the market (at drugstores, supermarkets and even craft shows) that cause confusion, so I appreciate your requesting clarification!
[After reading and answering your question, I went back into my post and edited to clarify these points.]
do you use synthetic fragrance oils in your products?
Hi Cathy,
Thanks for asking. We use a combination of skin-safe, high-quality essential oils and fragrance oils to create our five aromachology-based scent blends.