What do you tell your family?

Hey everyone! The day has arrived. It looks like tomorrow I'll be making my first batch. The wife though has given me some odd speeches that I don't know how to talk to her about....

Speech number 1 started out something like.... "I'm not using that soap there is LYE it in!!! What are you CRAZY :shock: !

Speech number 2 started out something like.... "I'm not using that soap there is animal fat in it! I'm not smearing animal fat all over my body. That can't be healthy for it at all!"

Well I'm guessing that you have heard these and others from family members. Please write all about it as I need the inspiration in knowing other people are a bit nuts too....


Michael

Resistance is Futile

Hi, Michael. Congrats (in advance) on making your first batch of soap!

I haven't encountered the resistance you have. Traditionally I have listed Sodium Hydroxide as an ingredient in my soap but when people have asked about it I explain that there is no residual NaOH in the final bars. I don't use animal fats in my soap as I have a couple of friends who use my soaps who are vegans.

Good luck! Scent your soap with something yummy and you may find that the resistance quickly evaporates.

Hmmm...now where have I heard that before! :wink:

We're not nuts. Everyone else is! :wink:

I had to educate my family about the lye thing when I first started out, too. After I had explained and gave them backup scientific proof (even a simple definition of 'soap' in the dictionary will do nicely) they settled down and now happily use my soaps.

It's funny how we have all been brainwashed throughout the years by the commercial industry. I used to think the same way as your wife does, but back then I really can't say that I actually knew anything about soap or how it was made. I just 'knew' it couldn't be good because all I'd ever heard was the bad press from the media rumor mill (Gasp! Commercials would never lie or bend the truth, would they?! ). Sadly, I had never checked things out for myself.

According to the FDA website, not all products labeled as soap meet the FDA definition of soap. The FDA defines soap as thus: "The bulk of the nonvolatile matter in the product consists of an alkali salt of fatty acids and the product's detergent properties are due to the alkali-fatty acid compounds." (underlining done by me)

The only way to create an "alkali salt of fatty acids" is by mixing fats/oils with a strong alkali, such as lye- either in sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide form. Doing so creates a compound that is a completely different entity than the parts that went into it- i.e. soap. Plain and simple chemistry.

Although you will probably never see the term 'lye' used on the label ingredients in a commercial bar of soap, you can let your wife know that lye was definitely ustilized in its manufacture whenever she sees such terms on the label as "Sodium Cocoate" or "Sodium Olivate" or Sodium Palm Kernelate", etc..". Sodium Cocoate basically means coconut oil that has been saponified (chemically changed into soap) via the use of some kind of lye. The same with the others, only olive oil and palm kernel oil were used as the fat portion along with the lye.

I don't know if your wife likes to use Dove for sensitive skin, but if so, you can let her know it contains soap made with lye and tallow (an animal fat!), palm oil, coconut oil and palm kernel oil. Here are its ingredients (bolding mine):

Sodium Lauroyl Isethionate , Stearic Acid , Sodium Tallowate , Sodium Palmitate , Lauric Acid , Sodium Isethionate , Water , Sodium Stearate , Cocamidopropyl Betaine , Sodium Cocoate , Sodium Palm Kernelate , Sodium Chloride , Tetrasodium EDTA , Tetrasodium Etidronate , Maltol , Titanium Dioxide.

It's pretty much the same with many other popular commercial soaps on the market, too. We get tripped up by the fact that 'lye' insn't specifically named, but there's more than one way to label lye.

Properly made soap (and I stress properly) is just that- soap. There's no more lye present in it- its been chemically changed into a harmless akali salt of a fatty acid (soap).

Having said that, it is possible to make a lye heavy soap, but only if one does not formulate, weigh and/or calculate properly. With all the modern tools available to the modern handmade soaper, though, it's a rare occurance. I've only ever had it happen to me once in my almost 4 years of soaping. It happened to me early on by my having calculated too daringly low of a superfat (my bad). Nobody got hurt, though, because I threw the batch out after doing a very simple zap test (very important to do for every batch no matter how careful one is is measuring, weighing and formulating). Also- the reason why so many people cite how 'great great grandma's' handmade lye soap was lye heavy and burned was because 'great great grandma' wasn't using the stable, factory-made, standardized lye as we do today. Hers was made from wood ashes which could be very unpredictable. Today's factory-made lye is very different and very predictable.

If she's still skittish about lye you can let her know that lye is also used in the manufacture of pretzels, olives, hominy, chocolate, etc..- things we happily and safley eat without so much as a thought.

As for animal fats, I love to use animal fats in my soap. They make good, hard, white bars of soap. I make all-veggie bars, too. It's all good, if you ask me. When I use my animal fat bars, I'm not rubbing lard or tallow all over me, I'm rubbing soap!

IrishLass

My guess is that once she tries one of your bars, she won't go back to commercial soap

I just talked to her a bit..... Dove soap is the 'norm' here. She was pretty shocked to say the least.

Thank you all for your help with her!

Michael

KnowWhat's right...she'll never go back!! Good luck on your first batch. It's over now....you're gonna be HOOKED just like the rest of us! :wink:

I use tallow for our family soaps. The soap is so silky and lasts a loooonnnggg time. You'll love it. Post pics if you can.

funny, my fam loves the natural part of my soap, I tell them that commercial soap has animal fat in it, and they are suprised, they didnt know. No one says anything about the lye part.
Believe me, after they try your soap, they will never wany commercial soap again.

When I told my mom that I was going to start making soap she was scared to death and told me how toxic lye is. When she was little they made lye soap all the time and she has the scars to prove it. One of her eyes is a different color to the other because she got splashed when she was little.

She tried her hardest to talk me out of it. After I made my first batch and showed it to her she was amazed that I could make it! lol Now she samples my soap for me and I tell her all the different ways that I make the soap. She is amazed because she remembers soap making taking days from rendering the fat to making their own lye.

My family doesn't really care what's in it, they just care how it smells. They all come in and sniff the bars and get the ones that they really like. No one ask me about lye or anything. They are all starting to get a little spoiled, now it's bath salts and emulsified sugar scrubs. They call and tell me they'll take some if I have any laying around! Yeah, right. I made some of each and sent it home with them. Now they come back for more. She'll get it soon enough and then Dove will be a thing of the past.

lol, recently an older sibling said *gasp* "You make soap in the kitchen?" And I'm one of those soapers that read MSDS on lye and wear shoes, long sleeved shirts, gloves, goggles, a mask and an open window when I soap I almost never started this hobby if it weren't for this forum assuring me that soap making is safe as long as you respect the lye and have a good superfat!

I educated my family, then had to re-educate one family member. He broke out into a rash on his legs & when the DR asked what he'd used, he said homemade soap. The Dr replied, "Don't use that! It has lye in it!!"

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh!!!

I had to break out the box of dove soap and show my family the ingredients, just yesterday. They couldn't believe me when I said the crap you buy at the store isn't real soap, and they said even Dove?! Dove must have quite the reputation. They said, "well they are deceiving their customers", until I showed them where on the box it reads beauty BAR. They don't claim to be soap but people assume. Educating people is a big part of any interaction you have with the public, whether it's friends and family or clients. The more people know about soap the more likely they are to buy handmade soap.

Fortunately my g/f is a trooper and will try anything. She also knows I'm anal-rententive, and will take the time to understand what I'm doing. We just had one small disagreement with someone she knows who does melt-n-pour soaps and talked about how "bad" lye was. So I had to explain all of the terms on the back of the bar of soap that "hide" the fact that lye is in it. sodium tallowate, saponified oils of blah, etc...

Also helps that there are still a lot of rural areas around me and a lot of people know that "lye soap" is good stuff. You just have to explain that its come a long way with what oils are available and the things you can do with it now.

My g/f's family thought we were crazy for making soap, but they all got in line when they used the first batch of body butter

I tell my family that the PVC pipe and the lye are for SOAP! NOT to build bongs and make crystal meth - after that, no argument LOL.

LOL! Ya, I'm waiting for a knock on the door from some official wondering why I order so much lye.

Yeah, it is interesting the reactions that people have to the word "Lye" or to the concept of homemade soap. I tell people I use my own soap and they ask "Oh, won't that eat away your skin?" or when they see a bar of soap ask, "what do you do with it?" or "does it get you clean?"

yeah I get the 'what do you do with it' a lot at my stall.

I always answer "I don't know what you do with soap, but I tend to wash with it when I shower"

My mother-in-law asked exactly the same thing...what do you do with it? Where on earth does that come from???? How many meanings does the word "soap" have? Next hurdle is to get her to quit referring to it as "hand soap." Like you can only wash your hands with it. :roll:

BakingNana said:

Next hurdle is to get her to quit referring to it as "hand soap." Like you can only wash your hands with it. :roll:

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I think we have the popular motel chains to thank for that one! Nice, neat little shards of "soap" that are labeled according to which body part one might use them on...



(Not my picture... just found on google image search.)