100 % Natural Or Not

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Can you call cp soap natural if you use fo and artificial colorants

  • yes

    Votes: 4 8.0%
  • no

    Votes: 40 80.0%
  • yes but

    Votes: 5 10.0%
  • no but

    Votes: 1 2.0%

  • Total voters
    50

pecorasfigs

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May 6, 2013
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Hi everyone, Hope all is well. I know u can call soap all natural. When u use EO and natural colorants. But what can u say. when u use FO and artificial coloring. 95% natural ?????. Please share your thoughts and knowledge
 
I recently read on the forum somewhere (sorry, I can't find it at the moment!) that soap can't be labeled 100% natural unless you make your own lye by leaching ashes. Hopefully that person will come along and give you the specific info on it. If you use purchase NaOH but use all other natural ingredients, it might be okay to do the math and state it's "whatever % natural". But as Meganmischke said, disclose your ingredients so the consumer can make their decision. I'm going to keep looking for that thread.....
 
There is a thread on B&B about a new shaving soap from a hand crafted soap maker. All the products are listed as all natural while using FOs and (I am fairly certain) factory made lye.

While I can't tell if the products are any good from that, it makes me as a soaper a little bit wary of someone who wants to market products either knowingly or unknowingly falsely.

If it is knowingly, what other little tricks might they be pulling? If it is unknowingly, what else about soap do they think is true when it is false?

Of course, average Joe's night not have this train of thought, but I certainly do
 
You can call anything you want "natural" but it is just a marketing term with no legal definition as for how it can be used in many industries. Personally, when I see the word used for marketing purposes, it just raises a red flag that the company is trying to pull something over on the consumer knowing that it has no legal definition. If you use the true definition of "natural"

1. existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.

Nothing we purchase outside of just picked fruit, vegetables and grains should be labeled natural (and even with those, I am sure many have been treated with pesticides, fertilizer, etc - thus would that negate the natural state too).

So to me - it is a useless term that just grabs people's attention to make them "think" they are getting a better product. I personally stay away from products that use this term to advertise with.
 
I had to vote yes because YOU CAN. Does that mean I would - no. However all natural, natural and 100% natural mean nothing when it comes to labels. I could put 100% natural on a plastic bowl and it is legally fine and correct. There is no definition of natural and as long as on some level I can break it down to the chemical composition - it is natural.

Crazy - yes but I avoid the word natural because it means nothing and everything.
 
I recently read on the forum somewhere (sorry, I can't find it at the moment!) that soap can't be labeled 100% natural unless you make your own lye by leaching ashes. Hopefully that person will come along and give you the specific info on it. If you use purchase NaOH but use all other natural ingredients, it might be okay to do the math and state it's "whatever % natural". But as Meganmischke said, disclose your ingredients so the consumer can make their decision. I'm going to keep looking for that thread.....


That is wrong...You can label anything natural. Truly anything. You wouldn't need to leach lye or even use oils....you could use detergent and call it natural.
 
That word ... "natural". Eh, the word is absolutely meaningless except to the gullible.

Leached lye or store-bought lye -- why stop after making this distinction?

Let's also add that one must raise, kill, and butcher the animals providing the lard and tallow. And grow the coconut, olive, avocado, and palm trees, etc., so we can harvest and press their fruits to obtain the oil. Oh, and also use water from wells we hand dig or from rainwater collected from our cottage roofs we have thatched with reeds we have harvested.

"Natural" is almost as bad as the idea some people have of being "chemical free".
 
Was selling yesterday at a winery festival and a lady asked me if my soap was all natural. I used to dread that question the first couple times it was asked to me, but now it doesn't bother me. I simply tell them "no, we do not make that claim." I keep it short and sweet, allow them to see all of our ingredients and if they buy, great and if they don't then it is what it is. I am not out to make a buck on trying to dupe people in to my products.
 
I like to say something along the lines of, "My unscented soaps are, but of course the great smelling ones (like the _____ in your hand) use synthetic Fragrance Oils. I also make soap, not detergent . . .) and start discussing the differences there.

In my experience, most people who ask about "natural" are actually thinking "soap vs. detergent", they just don't know how to ask.

As a side note, I am also often ask if I "make" my own honey. I reply that no, the bees do, and I don't want to work as hard as they do.

People sometimes just need help clarifying their thinking.

~Honey Lady~
 
I almost started a topic like this awhile back when I went into a soap/body product store in San Luis Obispo Ca, during my summer vacation. It was a lovely and clearly successful store. The sales girl made tons of miracle claims about their products as did their labels and the owner behind the counter as she schooled a customer on their "natural and secret formulas". (Sorry for the run-on sentence) When I said I was just browsing I was reminded about how all of their products were "natural and 100% organic".. The back of the store housed their studio where I could clearly see the huge fragrance oil bottles from Crafters choice (not organic or natural) I could also see the metal drums of Pomace olive oil.. The same exact ones I buy from Smart and Final (also not organic). I desperately wanted to give them a piece of my mind but instead kept my mouth shut, but it's bugged me ever since.
... so yes people will say whatever they want and customers will buy it.

I think I feel better after this rant
 
Of course, it's not natural for pig fat or plant oils to be taken out of the pig or the plant, either. ;) I agree with DeeAnna's post. The word is for the gullible when it comes to product labeling.
 
I really dislike that question, when customers ask if my soap is 'natural'. I don't want to say no, but I don't like using that word. I tell them they are hand crafted cold process soaps.

I try to guess what they might actually be asking. Sometimes I tell them about the differences between CP soaps and commercial soaps (retained glycerin, soap rather than detergent, etc). Sometimes I tell them about achieving different soap properties based on formulating with certain oils.

Sometimes (I think) they are asking about scents and colors. All my colors are from plant material, infusions or clays so I tell them that. As far as scents I point them to my unscented bars or my all EO scent blends as opposed to the ones where I use FOs which are clearly labeled as 'fragrance' in the label.....explaining about steam distillation of different plants rather than fragrance oils that are made in a laboratory....and quite often they buy the ones with 'fragrance'! But they came by my booth originally looking for a 'natural' soap? Go figure.
 
Whether or not it's "legal", I think it's a lie to say soap is "all natural" if it contains artificial colors or fragrance. On another thread, the OP mentioned somebody who was selling King Cake scented soap, and claiming her soap was scented with natural essential oils.

If you buy a food that's all natural, but it turns out it was died with Red 50 and flavored with artificial vanilla, would you be okay with that?
 
Yes, it is best to ask a customer what their idea of natural means. Most don't even know. I hear all the time about's LU$!!'s "natural products". Uh huh. So you need to find out what the customer is after: no detergent, no SLS, no fragrance or just really good marketing.

My customers really just seem to like how their skins feels by using my soap and don't give a rat's behind about "natural" - especially since most of them are just obsessed with scents.
 
I think there's a difference between a customer asking about "natural" and the maker using "natural" to describe his/her products. The customer can ask anything, and some of you have shared really good ways to handle this question -- I've filed away a few for future reference.

On the other hand, the maker using the word on the label or in advertising ... whole nuther deal. I personally would not use the word in relationship to soap, regardless of FO, EO, artificial color, natural color, or whatever. Natural, eco, organic, oh, and let's not forget chemical-free are terms that are so overused they've become meaningless.
 
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