What's the Difference Between Natural and Regular Soap?

Consuming natural or organic products is always the better choice if given the option. Your body performs better with organic foods, and your skin does better with natural soap. To help you make healthier choices, take a look at the key differences during the soap making process between natural and regular.

The ingredients are the first major difference. Through the making process, 'natural' soap is always a mixture of water, oil, and lye. Conversely, the regular types are detergent based from petroleum.

Other interesting finds in regular soap are isopropyl alcohol, BHT, and Tricoslan - an additive in much anti-bacterial brands. These additives are harmful to your skin. None, however, are found in natural soap.

The every-day effect on your skin is perhaps the most noticeable difference between regular and natural soap. Regular soap is often irritating to the skin, whereas natural soap has a soothing effect. Keep reading to find out why.

Alkali is the most common irritant found in regular detergent-based soaps. This substance makes your skin feel tight, itchy, or even sometimes flaky. Look at the label of the soap you're currently using to find out just how much alkali you're using.

After the soap making process, natural soap contains vast amounts of glycerin. This compound is fantastic for the skin - pulling moisture right out of the air. Glycerin makes your skin stay soft for longer, soothing and moisturizing your skin more that it would be by using regular soap.

Some people think that soap which is natural is much more expensive than regular soap. This is not true, for there is actually little difference in price between the two. If you want to bring the price down even further, consider making your own natural stuff at home.

Other people claim that buying natural soap is more inconvenient than buying what they are used to. Organic and natural products are increasing in popularity, however, and soap that is natural is not difficult to find. You can even shop for soap online, opening up a wide variety of natural products.

pH Testing - 3 Ways to Test Your Homemade Natural Soap

The most important aspect about making your own natural soap is to get the chemistry right. Not enough lye will create a soft bar that may never cure or take a long time to cure. Too much lye will cause a caustic bar, which would remove any natural oils from your skin to possibly causing red skin, or even burning, from little pockets of lye water.

I have always used phenolphthalein, (pronounced: fee no fah thay leen) a liquid that smells like nail polish remover. It usually comes in a dropper bottle, is inexpensive, and you simply allow a drop on the top of your soap. If it turns bright pink right away, then there is a high ph problem with your soap. If it turns pinkish after a new minutes, then this would be usual as the soap is still caustic and not fully neutralized. But if it has no color at all, this will indicate a pH normal bar - perfect.

I tried the litmus papers but preferred my phenolphthalein. Although many soapmakers swear by these. These test strips need you to wet a bar of the soap till there is some bubbles and place the strip on the bubbly part of the bar. After a few hundred bars of soap, you will have an expert eye and be able to tell by looking if there may be a problem. But in the beginning, I would test every slab.

The pH scale ranges from 1 - 14, and the aim for your soap will be between 6 - 10. Generally the numbers you will want for a mild soap would be 5 - 8. For a stronger hand soap, aim for 8 - 10, and for grating later for laundry, you'll want a reading of 10 - 12. Some soaps that test high initially will have lower pH levels later, so put it aside and retest in a couple of weeks. If you are using phenolphthalein, then the color you would be looking for would be clear for a mild soap, light pink for a hand soap, and dark pink for a laundry soap.

Some people use little electronic pH testers. They are considered more accurate and need to be buffered, or calibrated, before using. This method is also the most expensive.

Every so often, when not mixed properly, lye water will come to the top of the soap slab and look like harmless water or oil. This water is extremely caustic, be very careful when moving the slab around in the mold that none of this drips.

Explain the Manufacturing Process of Soap

Soap: In our daily life we use different forms of soap. We can't imagine a single day without the use of soap. It is an essential part of cleanliness in our civilized society.

There are three different forms of soap available in the market. These are Soap Bars, Detergent Powders and Liquid Soaps. Now we will discuss how these are manufactured in detail.

Bar Soap: The raw materials in bar soaps are fats, fatty acids and inorganic water-soluble bases. Fats are extracted from mutton tallow, beef, coconut, palm and palm kernel oils. After extracting the raw material it goes to a treatment plant to make it pure.

A continuous process makes it into a liquid form of soap. During the process glycerin is produced as a byproduct. The neat liquid soap then goes through a process called vacuum spray drying, to form dry soap palette.

In the final phase the dry palettes go to the finishing line. An amalgamator blends soap palettes with all other ingredients, colorants and fragrance. In a rolling mill and refining plodder the soap palettes are then homogenized and refined. In this section the soaps palettes get the desired texture. Then the palettes are cut into the bar size and in a press unit the stamping process is done.

Detergent Soaps: In the case of powder detergents three processes are used. These are dry mixing, spray mixing and agglomeration. Spray drying process combines all constituents into a thick suspension in a big tank. The thick suspension is then heated and lifted to the top of a tower by pumping it. At the top of the tower small nozzles spray the suspension with high pressure. It creates small droplets. These droplets fall from the top of the tower. When they fall, they pass through hot air. This converts the droplets into dry granules. These granules are then collected from the base of the tower and run through a screening process. This process makes all the granules uniform in size. These uniform sized granules are cooled and some enzymes, fragrance and bleach are added.

Using new and latest technology soap manufacturers now make high-density granules. In these granules percentage of air is very low, hence the granules can be packed in a smaller packet.

Liquid Detergents: To make Liquid Soaps two processes are used. These are continuous blending process and batch kettle boiling process. Added stabilizers ensure the stability and uniformity of the end product.

During the continuous blending process in a mixer dry and liquid ingredients are blended to make a stable and uniform mixture. In recent times, high-energy mixing processes have been introduced. In this process some stabilizing agents are used.

Packaging: Packaging is the final step of soap making. Bar soaps are first packed in single packs. Large numbers are packed in cartons. Detergent powders are packed in pouches, cans or bags. Good packaging can increase sales and hence soap manufacturers lay emphasis on good packaging.