Vermont
Soap Organics 3.5 oz. Bar Soap
Vermont Organics Bar Soap's
super-mild handmade soap bars are USDA Certified Organic to Food
Standards. Made from a hypoallergenic vegetable base of organic
Coconut, Palm, Olive and Palm Kernel oils, we use natural, aromatherapy
essential oils and botanical extracts to alter the effects of this
moisturizing soap base on your skin. All bars are facial quality.
Different blends for different skin types.
It takes nearly a month to handcraft a
bar of Vermont Soap. Only this 200 year old process yields a bar of
soap suitable for the most sensitive skin. For more information see
below; What
is soap?
All of our products are free of
artificial colors, fragrances or preservatives. We use Rosemary Extract
as a natural preservative. No animal products (except honey soap),
animal by-products or testing.
Available Scents include: peppermint magic, honey, citrus sunrise and
oatmeal lavendar. Please
note scent in remarks box when ordering.
What
is soap?
Vermont Soap Organics takes oils, which make you
greasy, and turns them into soap, which make you clean. This process is
called saponification (making soap). Soap is fascinating stuff. It is
actually a salt that foams! This crystalline nature of soap allows it
to be made clear as glass when boiled in alcohol with sugars. Now a
salt is what you get when you mix an acid and a base together. The
acids and bases neutralize each other and a salt forms in the process.
Soap, is made from acidic oils and an alkaline solution. Think of it
like a child's seesaw. Oil and alkali must be in balance to make the
perfect bar of soap.
Any unsaponified oils are called "Free fatty acids", and they
add to the moisturizing effect of high quality soaps. Use too much, and
the soap will not lather, and it will have a shortened shelf life.
Excess alkali, or "Free Alkali" is harsh and drying to sensitive skin.
About 25% of us are estimated to get a dry skin reaction to free alkali
in our soaps. At Vermont Soap Organics, they formulate for a little bit
of oil and no measurable free alkali. This is part of the reason why
their handmade soap is so mild. Here's a light version of how the
chemistry of soap plays out:
How it works:
When you mix oils, alkali and water,
they chemically react and turn into soap and glycerin. At Vermont Soap
Organics they
stir the glycerin back in to add to the moisturizing qualities of the
final
product.
Where does alkali come
from?
In the old days, rainwater was filtered through hardwood ashes (coconut
husk and plantain ashes in Africa and South Pacific, oak and maple here
in
New England) to make a Potassium Hydroxide solution. Bar soaps are made
from Sodium Hydroxide. This is what you get when you run electricity
through salt water. Modern day Potassium Hydroxide is made from a
similar process.
What makes it lather?
Soap is very unusual, acting like a snake with two heads. The oily head
hates water and the alkali head loves water. When you mix soap and
water, this love/hate relationship causes soap to lather.
Is glycerin good for my
skin? YOU BET!
Glycerin is in fact more valuable by weight than soap. Milled soaps
remove their glycerin by adding salt to their batch. Most glycerin in
turn is used as a stabilizer in Food and Cosmetics production, as well
as an inhibitor in cigarette paper which allows it to burn more evenly.
With glycerin removed, the end result is a soap that dries your skin!
That's because glycerin, mixed with a little oil and water left in the
soap, creates a hand-lotion-in-soap effect. This allows us to create a
bar that cleans and removes oils, while soothing sensitive skin.
What about glycerin
clear bars?
True transparent soap is made by boiling the soap base in alcohol and
sugars. Heat and pressure may also be used. Pluses are a high glycerin
content and mild pH. Negatives are a bar that dissolves quickly, and
often contains artificial colors, fragrances, and alcohol which can dry
your skin. Propylene glycol (antifreeze) and triethanolalamine (TEA)
are used to make the "melt and pour" soap base of many so called
vegetable glycerin bars. Not our idea of natural!
What does "French
Milled" mean?
One of the early uses for stainless steel was to run soap base between
2 rollers. They began experimenting with running hot and cold water
through the rollers. French milled soap was born! Advantage is a
milder, longer lasting bar. These higher quality bar soaps are not
milder than handmade soaps.
What is the alternative?
Vermont Soap Organics!
We recommend natural handmade or "poured" soaps. These traditional,
poured and cured processed soaps last nearly twice as long as most mass
market bars. Our soap is mixed in small batches and poured into wooden
molds. The end result is an opaque premium bath and body bar that is
mild enough for the most sensitive skin. Many sufferers of dermatitis
can find relief from these types of soaps.
Problem: When alkali and oil fail to merge
chemically, Alkali Salts (sodium hydroxide and oxygen) are left in the
product. Alkali Salts have a high pH and are very drying to the skin.
Many commercial soaps are full of these salts. It is estimated that
about 25% of us are sensitive to this irritant.
The Vermont soap makers knew they would have to make a soap that had no
alkali salts in it, but how? Translucent glycerin bars were low in
alkali salts, but were short lived and frequently are irritating due to
alcohol (or worse) used in their manufacturing. After months of
research, 8 factors were identified in soaps which dry skin, they are:
- Free Alkali
- Alcohol
- Artificial Fragrances
- Artificial colors
- Too high % of Coconut oil in the soap
- Low quality base ingredients
- Preservatives
- Certain essential oils
So here was the challenge - to make a high glycerin,
non-alcohol bar soap without using the artificial fragrances and colors
used to mask poor quality bases. The answer was to take a giant step
back in time!
A Brief History of Soap:
Western Soap had its origins in ancient Greece on the Island
of Lesbos. There, animal sacrifices were made to the Goddesses. Because
the sacrifices were often cremated, hardwood ashes would accumulate (an
early source of alkali). These ashes mixed with the tallow of the
sacrificed animals. It is said that after a heavy rain a yellow runoff
from the fire pit made its way downhill from the temple. The local
women washing their clothes in the river noticed that their clothes
were cleaner when the river ran yellow. History remembered their poet,
Sappho, who wrote of these times and honored her with the definition
Saponification - the chemical name for soap making. These are the same
women who invented banks.
Over time it was learned that adding salt water to the mixture
would precipitate the removal of glycerin and excess water, thus making
the soap harder, and not subject to the month long curing process
required of true handmade soap. This old-fashioned "yellow soap" was
used for laundry, dishes, and the occasional bath.
In France during the reign of Louis the 14th, bathing was
considered an oddity not the norm. It is said that King Louis
guillotined 3 soap makers for making soap that irritated his very
sensitive royal skin. In desperation the 4 remaining soap makers in
Paris got together and invented a method of pouring and curing the soap
- taking a month to make a single bar. They saved their own necks, and
the world got handmade soap (a.k.a. poured soap, cold process soap,
farm soap, cured soap).
Vermont Soap Organics is made using a
modern version of this three hundred year-old method. Certified organic
oils of Palm,
Coconut, Olive and Palm Kernel are blended and mixed at precise
temperatures
with an alkali solution. (Modern Alkali is made by running electricity
through salt water.) The batch is mixed for hours, allowing it to
thicken
slowly. When it is ready, botanical concentrates and organic herbs,
spices
and grains are added. The batch is then poured into wooden molds and
kept
warm for about three days. As the soap solidifies, alkali salts begin
to
rise to the top like cream. Around the fourth day the soap, now solid
in
block form, is removed from the molds, skimmed of all alkali salts, and
cut
into individual bars. The bars are then placed on custom made oak and
stainless steel screened drying racks and cured for about three more
weeks.
This process produces the mildest soap that can be made. Often lasting
about
twice as long as conventional bars, this soap is extremely moisturizing
and
soothing to your skin.
Various herbal extracts called essential oils are used to
enhance and individualize the soaps, as well as to accommodate various
skin types. Peppermint Magic, Balsam Swirl, and Citrus Sunrise contain
natural astringents making them suitable for skin that is not dry.
Lavender relaxes pores making it the perfect soap for normal to dry
skin. Shea Butter creates a soap that works best on the driest skin
types. Add organic oatmeal and you have Oatmeal Lavender, excellent for
dry sensitive skin. Our Honey soap is great for combination skin
combining the exfoliating benefits of cornmeal with the moisturizing
properties of honey and the natural astringent properties found in
clove oil. Woodspice is naturally deodorizing and stimulating and is
great for normal to oily skin. Oats 'N Aloe Unscented is a mild and
hypoallergenic bar, perfect for the most sensitive of skin types. This
bar comes highly recommended from sufferers of dry skin, and Dermatitis.
When the crew at Vermont Soap Organics set out to make a soap
that wouldn't dry the most sensitive of skins, little did they know the
journey would take them to the cutting edge of cosmetics chemistry, and
hundreds of years into the past!
Vermont Soap - the first
soap in 200 years truly fit for a king!
USA
|
