Listing ingredients

[Trish]

Hi, I'm really new to this mode of communication, but i have a question to ask. Here's the situation, I'm selling homemade aa natural soap at a local health food store, i call the owner today to see how it's going and she says, "not very well, everyone who picks up the soap loves it, until they read the ingredients, THERE"S LYE IN IT". Can you come and pick it up because i don't think we'll sell very much!" My question is, does the label have to list the lye?
Awaiting a reply, Thanks for your replies, Trish

 

[Tabitha]

I never see lye listed on CP labels. I have been corrected about this before, but the lye eiether leaves or mutates so it is not longer there... so to speak...

 

[dragonfly princess]

Um....since it is "No lye, no soap" why would you have to list it?

 

[kaelynn]

I'm really new to soapmaking (still waiting on my first shipment of supplies) but anytime I've seen an ingredients listing the lye has been listed as "sodium hydroxide". Perhaps that might help since not everyone knows that sodium hydroxide=lye?

Or perhaps the owner could inform people that it's impossible to make soap without lye but that the lye has been chemically altered by the soapmaking process to be perfectly safe.

Good luck!

Um...btw, you wouldn't be carmelsoaps on Etsy would you?

 

[WilsonFamilyPicnic]

a lot of CP labels read "contains saponified oils of blah, blah, blah, distilled water, essential oil..." so that indicates that lye was used to saponify those oils to make soap.

or put a little note at the end of the ingredients stating that that lye is used in the process although no lye is left in the finished soap....

and its not required to list ingredients on soap, but it is a good thing to do...

 

[Tabitha]

Wilson, it is not required to list ingredients, bt if you list even 1 ingredient (EX: Shea Butter Soap) you must list them all, isn't that right? I don't do CP so I am not up on all the specifics, that is why I ask.

 

[Soapmaker Man]

That is correct Tab. In the US soap is just that, soap, and no ingredients are required by law to be listed. Most soap makers do list the ingredients. Like you said, you list 1, you list all of them. I list in order of weight, great to lessor in my soap. If you make the slightest medical claim, you MUST register with the FDA because it will fall under even harder examination and testing. I take an opposing stand that any soap, on its own, can be "moisturising." It can DRAW water to your skin as with the glycerin's homeostatic property in the soap, but since it is a wash off product, no soap can be truly "moisturizing." :roll: Off my soap box again....

Paul

 

[organicsoapgal]

a lot of CP labels read "contains saponified oils of blah, blah, blah, distilled water, essential oil..." so that indicates that lye was used to saponify those oils to make soap.

Ditto to this.

 

[lotionlady]

a lot of CP labels read "contains saponified oils of blah, blah, blah, distilled water, essential oil..." so that indicates that lye was used to saponify those oils to make soap.

That's what I do.

 

[Neil]

I agree here with the general consensus that it’s not necessary to list lye or even sodium hydroxide. Because you can not get the lye from this product. It has been changed. Its like saying contains Hydrogen and oxygen... or should we say water?

sa•pon•i•fy
v. sa•pon•i•fied, sa•pon•i•fy•ing, sa•pon•i•fies
v.tr.
1. To convert (an ester) by saponification.
2. To convert (a fat or oil) into soap.

saponification /sa•pon•i•fi•ca•tion/ (sah-pon?i-fi-ka´shun) conversion of an oil or fat into a soap by combination with an alkali. In chemistry, the term now denotes hydrolysis of an ester by an alkali, producing a free alcohol and an alkali salt of the ester acid.

This is a subject that continues to arise in the marketing
of homemade or handmade soap. Because the general populous is uneducated in the process of soap making. I suggest we use terminology that is truthful But doesn’t scare or require mounting an education campaign. Would they react the same way if they knew the soap they bought at the store and use at home was made using LYE. I believe I will change the way I list my Ingredients to say saponified oils of etc.

 

[Soapmaker Man]

Me too. I have always listed my ingrediants in order by weight, from most to least. I start out saying "Includes saponified oils of----"