Commercial formulations can change, so it's always worth checking the manufacturer's current ingredient label.

For example, the current Dove Original Beauty Bar lists sodium lauroyl isethionate as its first ingredient and also contains ingredients such as stearic acid, lauric acid, sodium oleate, sodium isethionate, sodium stearate and cocamidopropyl betaine. Dove describes the product as a Beauty Bar made with a plant-based cleanser.

That doesn't mean Dove doesn't clean the skin. It does.

But it illustrates an important point:

A cleansing bar and a traditionally made cold-process bar of soap aren't necessarily the same thing.

Irish Spring and Ivory have their own formulations and aren't identical to Dove. Some commercial soap ingredients may also originate from plant oils even when the original whole oil no longer appears on the ingredient label under a familiar name.

That's why we encourage customers to look beyond words such as “plant-based” or “natural” and learn a little about how the bar itself was actually made.

Is Dove Actually Soap?

This is an interesting question because the answer depends on what we mean by “soap.”

In everyday conversation, most of us would probably call a Dove Beauty Bar soap.

Dove itself calls the product a Beauty Bar. Its current Original Beauty Bar uses sodium lauroyl isethionate and cocamidopropyl betaine among its cleansing ingredients.

The FDA's regulatory definition of soap is more specific. For a product to fall under that definition, it must consist primarily of alkali salts of fatty acids and its cleansing action must come from those soap ingredients. When synthetic detergents provide the cleansing action, the product doesn't meet that particular regulatory definition of soap.

So yes, there really is a difference between traditional soap and some of the bars we commonly call soap.

One of the Beautiful Things About Cold-Process Soap: Glycerin

Here's something many people don't realize.

We don't add glycerin to our cold-process soap. We make it.

When oils and sodium hydroxide undergo saponification, glycerin is nat

urally created as part of the soapmaking process.

We don't have to pour glycerin into our original soap recipe to create it.

The soapmaking process creates it for us.

And with our traditional cold-process method, that naturally occurring glycerin remains in the finished bar.

Glycerin is a humectant, which means it attracts water. It's such a useful ingredient that you'll find glycerin added to countless skincare and personal-care products.

So if you look at one of our original soap recipes and don't see glycerin listed as something we added to 

the batch, that doesn't mean the finished soap doesn't contain glycerin.

It means something much more interesting:

The glycerin was created naturally while we were making the soap.

Why Does Handmade Soap Feel Different?

For many of our customers, this is what matters most.

They may not initially know anything about saponification, surfactants or soap chemistry.

They simply know how their skin feels after they wash it.

Over the years, we've heard from many customers who tell us their skin doesn't have the same tight, stripped or overly dry feeling after switching to our handmade soaps.

We've also received personal stories from customers with extremely dry or sensitive skin, including customers who have told us they live with eczema or psoriasis, who say their skin feels much more comfortable after changing what they use to cleanse it.

Those are their individual experiences—not a claim that soap treats eczema, psoriasis or any other medical condition. Everyone's skin is different, and medical skin conditions should be discussed with a healthcare professional.

But after years of making soap and hearing from our customers, one thing has become very clear to us:

What you wash your skin with matters.

Why the Oils in Handmade Soap Matter

One of the things we love most about traditional soapmaking is being able to choose the oils that go into a recipe.

Different oils contribute different properties to a finished soap.

Coconut oil can contribute hardness, cleansing ability and bubbly lather. Castor oil can help support a rich lather. Other carefully selected oils and butters can influence the hardness, creaminess and overall feel of the finished bar.

A cold-process soap maker can also formulate a recipe with superfatting, which means intentionally formulating the soap so that a calculated portion of the fats or oils remains unsaponified.

It's part chemistry and part craftsmanship.

And after making soap for so many years, you learn that a good bar isn't about creating the biggest bubbles possible.

It's about creating a well-balanced bar.

More Bubbles Don't Necessarily Mean Better Soap

We've become accustomed to associating lots of foam with cleanliness.

But more bubbles don't automatically mean better cleansing—or a better bar for your particular skin.

Traditional soap makers formulate their recipes by balancing the characteristics of different oils and fats.

That's one of the fundamental differences between making soap from scratch and simply purchasing a finished cleansing base.

We formulate the bar itself.

What About Melt-and-Pour Soap?

This is another distinction worth understanding when you see the words “handmade soap.”

Someone can purchase an already manufactured melt-and-pour base, melt it, add fragrance, color or botanicals, pour it into a mold and sell the finished bars as handmade.

There's nothing inherently wrong with melt-and-pour soap, and not all melt-and-pour bases are detergent bars. Some contain true soap, some contain additional surfactants, and formulas vary.

But it isn't the same thing as making soap from scratch.

With traditional cold-process soapmaking, the soap maker begins with fats and oils and actually carries out the saponification process.

At Tierra Mia Organics, that's what making soap means to us.

Why We Make Fresh Goat Milk Soap

For us, goat milk soap isn't simply a marketing phrase printed on our label.

We raise dairy goats.

We milk them.

And we use their fresh milk in our soapmaking process.

We don't purchase powdered goat milk and add it to a premade soap base.

The fresh milk becomes part of the recipe itself, bringing its naturally occurring fats, sugars and other components into our formulation and helping contribute to the creamy character of our goat milk soap.

There is something beautifully simple about knowing where your ingredients came from.

We know our goats.

We know our oils.

We know our recipe.

And we know how every batch was made.

What

Should You Look for When Buying Natural Handmade Soap?

Don't rely only on words like natural, handmade or plant-based on the front of the package.

Turn the bar over and read the ingredients.

If you're buying from a small soap maker, ask how the soap is made. Is it made from scratch? Is it cold process or hot process? What oils and fats are used? Is the soap made through saponification? Is it made from a premade melt-and-pour base? Does the formula use synthetic detergent surfactants? And if it's goat milk soap, is it made with fresh goat milk, powdered goat milk or a premade goat-milk base?

A soap maker who makes their products from scratch should be able to tell you exactly how they're made.

What Are the Benefits of Natural Handmade Soap?

For us, the beauty of handmade soap isn't simply being able to put the word “natural” on a label.

It's knowing what you're washing your skin with.

Traditional cold-process soap gives the soap maker control over the fats and oils used to formulate the bar. Saponification creates the soap itself along with naturally occurring glycerin. The maker can formulate the recipe, choose the ingredients and keep the process simple.

And when soap is made in small batches, there's a person behind it who knows exactly how it was made.

That's how we've chosen to make soap at Tierra Mia Organics since 2010.

Real oils. Fresh goat milk. Small batches. Traditional soapmaking.

Sometimes going back to an old way of doing something isn't going backward at all.

Sometimes it's simply returning to something beautifully simple.  

Ready to experience the difference? Explore our handmade goat milk soaps, made from scratch in small batches with fresh goat milk and carefully selected oils.