Natural Soaps
What is 'Cold Crafted' Natural Soap?
The Cold Crafted method of creating luxury soap products is a time honored traditional practice of soapcrafting that takes fresh, specially chosen flower and plant oils, gently warmed to their natural melting points, and then slowly mixes them with an alkaline solution. As the mixture thickens and cools pure essential oils, flower extracts and other beneficial ingredients are added to produce a final product that is as magical in appearance and scent as it is gentle to the skin. Because no additonal heat is applied once the oils have been melted this unique method of soapcrafting is often called the `Cold Crafted' process or 'Cold Process' soap.
What Ingredients are in Natural Soap?
Only the finest quality 100% natural flower and plant essences are used in our products while many of the most popular and well known commercial soap brands in the world continue to use low cost animal fat and well known skin toxic, synthetic preservatives, fragrances, foaming boosters and colorants even today.
Why is 'Cold Crafted' Soap Superior to Commercial Soap?
Commercially extruded and glycerin type soaps - even the most expensive `French Triple Milled' soaps - are created by employing a production method that applies high temperatures, pressure and excessive amounts of alkaline solution to speed up the soap saponification reaction in order to make more soap faster. Unfortunately natural flower and plant essences are sensitive to heat, light and other factors and are damaged when subjected to this very harsh manufacturing process. The result is that the active beneficial components within each natural ingredient are destroyed, thereby losing the very properties and reason for choosing them in the first place.
It is also important to note that commercial soaps are usually made with ingredients that have been decolorized and deodorized to make them cosmetically neutral and more appealing. This very "refinement" neutralizes their beneficial properties as well.
The `Cold Crafted' method of making soap uses low temperatures for only a short period of time during the process in order to bring various oils to their natural melting points. Once this is achieved no further external heat is applied thereby allowing these natural essences retain their skin nourishing and health related benefits. In addition, the `Cold Crafted' process itself naturally creates within the soap a byproduct called glycerin - a humectant - which helps draw moisture to the skin and contributes to the silky smooth feel of all our soaps. Commercial soap contains very little if any glycerin as it is often extracted and sold as a food / cosmetic additive because of its higher resale value.
Cold Crafted soaps are also unique in that they contain ZERO free alkali and salt... unlike commercial soaps which usually contain 0.1% to 1% - another reason why even the most expensive "French Milled" soaps are still drying to the skin. Many customers also report that since switching to natural Cold Crafted soaps their existing skin allergies disappear or at the very least are significantly reduced.
Consider the following scenario. You wake up in the morning and grab your favorite shampoo ( full of synthetic fragrance, colorants, preservatives and foaming agents ). Perhaps you also use a hair conditioner ( again full of synthetic fragrance, preservatives, slip agents, colorants and foaming boosters). Do you use a shower gel to wash? More synthetics. Even your well known brand of soap is likely to have at the very least synthetic fragrance and colorants. After showering your skin may feel a little dry so you open that jar of body and hand moisturizer - more synthetic fragrance and preservatives... that stay on your skin! Face moisturizer, more synthetics. Perfume, yes even these often contain a blend of synthetic fragrances. After subjecting your body to so many synthetic skin irritants on a daily basis it's perhaps not so surprising why most of the world's population suffers from some degree of skin allergy. And that's not all! We haven't even mentioned what remains on your clothes after they've been washed with synthetic detergents.