The Beautiful Qualities of Cold Process Soap Bars
I've been making soap for decades, what started as a means of helping myself and my patient's skin in Cyprus soon became a thriving little business. It was the precursor to A.S Apothecary and ideal for where we lived because of the plentiful Olive oil, wild herbs, citrus and beeswax. I could wander down to the old olive production shed and buy oil more or less straight from the press, unfiltered, pure and fresh. A mile away from my home there was a citrus oil press where I could get fresh lemon, orange and grapefruit oil. Everywhere there were herbs - Mint, Thyme, Oregano and Bay. On the other side of the valley there were hundreds of beehives where I bought honey for my creams and beeswax for the soaps. Every season the honey and beeswax changed to reflect the flowers that were available to the bees. In April it was Orange Blossom and the honey and beeswax were so beautifully perfumed.
When I came back to the UK I carried on making soap, once experienced, it's impossible to return to conventional soap bars that dry the skin and feel so horrid. There is a general misunderstanding about soap bars, the idea that all are equal, this is simply not the case.
Hot and Cold Process
Hard soap is essentially a salt - the product of a chemical reaction between an acid (the oils) and an alkali (the lye). Soap Bars can be produced by a hot process where they are ready for use almost immediately or a cold process where the bars have to cure for weeks to allow the full saponification of the acid/alkali and to create a hard bar.
I've made soap using the hot process and I really didn't enjoy it, it needs hours of stirring a hot pot with caustic ingredients through the various stages from oily to mashed potato and finally translucent at which point it is rendered safe. My friend who taught me the method said the best way to check if it was cooked properly was to touch a tiny bit to my tongue to see if it fizzed. It was a twice only experience. Once with her, once by myself and never again.
Cold process in contrast, is so pleasing, it's slow, careful work and the resulting bars are absolutely beautiful. Although I'm in Harris, I still insist on extra virgin Olive oil as the base, there is nothing to compete with it for its skin enhancing properties. It has been used in soap making for centuries because Olive oil contains high levels of oleic acid, which helps to hydrate the skin, leaving it soft, smooth, and supple. It also cleans without disrupting the skins natural biome, this is really important. Cold process Olive oil soap doesn't strip the oils from the skin because it retains both the squalene and the protective polyphenols. The process also creates naturally produced glycerin.
In Cyprus our soaps were 100% Olive oil but when I came back to the UK I realised that the British experience of soap is to equate bubbles with cleaning - this is actually not the case - Olive oil by itself doesn't bubble so I reformulated the soaps with a little Coconut oil to bring the bubbles and Shea Butter to add to the moisturising properties. I also stopped adding in the beeswax because I wanted it to be available to everyone.
Conventional Commercial Methods
Commercially produced soaps are a whole different ball game, they have the glycerin stripped out because it gums up the rollers in the machines, they often use animal fat as the base and other cheap oils, it's not a cold process and it's often triple rolled to make it very hard. Essential oils are rarely used, cheap fragrance oils are the most common choice. Colours are frequently added to jazz up the finished bars. The result is a vastly inferior product that dries the skin, feels unpleasant to use and smells slightly chemical. Any time you see 'parfum' on the ingredients list, run a mile because it is almost guaranteed to be a cocktail of synthetics.
Some other companies choose the melt and pour option where they buy in a ready made soap and simply melt it, add in their own scent profile and pout it into moulds. This soap is ready for use immediately but often contains synthetic surfactants which disrupt the biome and dry the skin.
Our Shampoo Bars
We have recently started making shampoo bars (they're also great for the body too) which are an absolute joy. It has been so brilliant to abandon plastic bottles and liquid soap in favour of something better for scalp, hair and environment. It took a long time to get these right but they are really beautiful soap bars leaving hair soft, shiny and healthy. Our shampoo bars are also cold process with all the same oils as our body bars plus a few extra ingredients that we make, so that they are suitable for hair. We don't use surfactants like virtually every other company, we don't think it's necessary, we prefer to rely on our knowledge of plants and natural soap making to get the product exactly as we want it. The Harris Myrtle & Rockweed Shampoo (it was Harris Myrtle & Juniper but I decided we should have the seaweed in the name!) uses seaweed as the base for all of its fantastic hair and scalp conditioning properties. The Harris Geranium & Meadowsweet is great for soothing the scalp. We also have a limited edition Rose Shampoo Soap which has just finished curing and is simply beautiful, making use of the Rose infusion after a Rose distillation.
For those of us who grew up with orange Coal Tar Soap and Imperial Leather, our soap is a world away, in the best way. If you haven't tried our lovely soaps, you might find them a real game changer...