Do you how many harmful chemicals are found in your typical bottle of soap? In addition to a whole slew of ingredients you can’t pronounce, soaps (especially antibacterial soaps) can contain toxic chemicals. These soaps, which we use multiple times a day, contain things such as parabens, which are suspected to be estrogen mimickers and can cause skin irritation. This causes the body to think that there is an abnormally high level of the hormone which in turn can affect muscle mass and fat deposits. They also more commonly contain sulfates and fragrances. Sulfates, which are responsible for all the bubbles you see when you wash your hands/body/hair, strip the skin of their natural oils and also act as a skin irritant for people with sensitive skin. I don’t know about you, but I love all the different scents that soaps have. But it’s that scent that companies put in there that can be the most harmful. When “Fragrance” is listed on a product’s ingredient list, it could be anything. Companies aren’t required to list what makes up their fragrance, so most of the time they’re comprised of various synthetic chemicals and cancer causing agents (ie phthalates)
So how can you avoid all of this? Natural soap!
This challenge involved making your own soap using simple ingredients. I followed the recipe on the ecochallenge page which called for:
- 250g of glycerin base (I used 1lb of shea butter natural soap base)
- Strong, warm, green tea (I used 3 bags of ginger peach green tea)
- Essential oils if desired ( I didn’t have mine with me, but I was planning on using the orange essential oil I have at home)
The shea butter cost $9.95, the tea costs $2.50 for a box at walmart, and the essential oil if desired costs $5.99 which keeps everything under the budget for a total of $18.44.
I started out by cutting the soap into chunks.
After I did that, I took three bags of the ginger peach tea and made them into a strong tea. While that was steeping, I took to melting the glycerin chunks in a double boiler. It melted pretty quickly! I didn’t have to pots that were the same size (its tough being a college student), so I improvised and it worked out fine.
I combined part of the mug of tea (I didn’t want it to be too watery) and the melted shea butter glycerin once they were about the same temperature and poured them into a muffin tin.
After they were poured into the muffin tins I put them in the freezer for thirty minutes to let them set. My paranoia made me go check on them every couple minutes and they were actually hardening! I took them out after a while and set them on the counter for the rest of the night. In the morning, I woke up and popped them out of the tin.
And it worked! I had soap! Slightly squishy soap, but still soap nonetheless. And it was SO easy to make. The only thing I might tweak next time is that I’ll definitely add more tea and less water. The ginger peach scent wasn’t really, there, I could only really smell the shea butter.
Doing this project/challenge inspired me to look into soap making. It’s honestly a lot of fun and super easy to do. Plus, it can make great gifts! And there’s so many different ingredients you can incorporate. For anybody who wants to try this, I highly recommend adding essential oils.
Here’s one website I stumbled upon that looks like a lot of fun:
http://www.modernsoapmaking.com/