Common Organic & Non Organic Ingredients Found in Soap: Does It Necessarily Matter What's In It?

Organic Soap vs. Non-Organic Soap

The term 'Organic' is increasingly used on products, and I suspect not always correctly. What does it really mean vis a vis soap? Does it always really matter? Is homemade soap synonymous with organic soap? I decided to find out how soap is made. So after doing some research I've learned homemade soap need not be organic soap and vice versa and many mass produced soaps are definitely not organic. I've outlined some distinctions about the ingredients of soap to help you decide what you want to use. Here are common distinctions between organic soap and non organic soap ingredients regardless of whether it is home made or mass produced.

Common to Organic & Non Organic soaps:

• All soap is made with sodium hydroxide and water (combining both of these ingredients is called ‘saponification’)
• Either type may contain glycerin

Possible Non Organic ingredients

1. preservatives (a cornucopia of synthetically produced chemicals to make the soap - look for an upcoming post for more on what preservatives are about)
2. dyes created in a lab somewhere in part or whole from synthetically created compounds.
   
3. may contain brand named soaps used as a basis (including shampoo and the like)
4. fragrance is concocted in a lab somewhere using either naturally occurring chemicals and non-naturally occurring chemicals or simply the latter.
5. petroleum products
6. animal lard (if you are not crazy about smearing animal fat all over your body, for whatever reason and would rather smear fat from various vegetables on your body you probably want to keep a lookout for this one. Not to be flippant about this point, but if you are interested in knowing all ethically relevant information about the ingredients and process for making soap then 'animal lard' or 'animal by products' really is not a meaningful description. For instance, I make a distinction as a consumer between a product in which the animal by product is whale blubber and one in which it is fat drippings from someone's dinner of grain fed chicken who walked around freely during his/her life. Whales for one, are an endangered species. While P.E.T.A may disagree with me on that point, I will say that I do prefer to have soap that is purely vegetable based. Purely vegetable based soaps, remove any concerns I have that some animal whoever he/she was, was not tortured while alive or killed in large part for the purpose of becoming an ingredient in my soap.

Possible Organic ingredients

1. vegetable fat containing no preservatives
2. water may be of the tap, distilled or rain variety
3. scented with essential oils which are extracted from natural sources
4. dyes extracted only from naturally occurring vegetation


Read the label

I am in the habit of reading the label on food before I buy it. This is because I want to know what I am putting into my mouth. (I don't always put the most advisable foods in my mouth, but I'd like to make that choice for myself - thank you). That is to say, I don't particularly like being manipulated (who does?) by anyone including and probably particularly by marketers.

However when it comes to soap, I have not been quite as vigilant. I have always preferred ones that don't accost my senses with over-perfumed fumes (does soap have fumes? Not sure, but you know what I am getting at here). I prefer no scent or a light scent of something that I like such as fruit or herbs.

Soap makers often don't state the ingredients of the product. I believe this is a travesty. Some make vague statements that tend to work out to give a favorable impression of the soap, but don't give you a complete statement of the ingredients. Beware labels that say things like "Vegetable based glycerin soap made with 72% organic ingredients". And what may I ask is the rest of the thing made from?

As an aside, products I am interested in buying must not be tested on animals and must tell me that on the label (no 'either or' on this point), but it is not the end of the world to me, if my soap has alcohol in it, while I am not sure whether alcohol disqualifies a bar of soap from being organic or not, I don't really care.

My new policy is if you are not going to tell me what is in your soap, then I don't want it regardless of how pretty, cheap, nicely scented creatively packaged or homemade it is. I hope I've contributed information you can use to make an informed decision for yourself. Let me know what you think.