Saturday, March 19, 2011

Pet Peve of the week

Dove soap and it's "1/4 moisturizing lotion" claim!

The list of ingredients

Sodium Lauroyl Isethionate, Stearic Acid, Sodium Tallowater or Sodium Palmitate, Lauric Acide, Sodium Isethionate, Water, Sodium Stearate, Cocarnidopropyl Betand, Sodium Cocoate or Sodium Palm Kernelate, Fragrance, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Sodium Chloride, Tetrasodium EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Titanium Dioxide, Yellow 5, Yellow 6

That's a bit confusing, so let's break it down.

1. is a surfactant (a detergent or wetting agent which lowers the surface tension of a liquid)
2. a vegetable based stearic acid
3. beef tallow (yes - ANIMAL FAT)
4. palm oil
5. lauric acid can be either coconut oil or palm kernel oil
6. is another surfactant used for creamy dense lather
7. is the salt derivative found in stearic acid
8. is another synthetic surfactant derived from coconut oil
9. another name for coconut oil
10. another name for palm kernel oil
11. fragrance oil
12. shea butter
13. common table salt
14.preservative
15. another preservative
16. color white
17. color yellow
18. another color yellow

Yes - it contains not only beef fat but palm oil! But let's move on...

Where is the moisturizing lotion? Well, there is no "lotion" in soap. What there is, is unsoponified oils. When we make our soap recipe we add up the oils and calculate the amount of lye needed to turn it into soap. Good handmade soap always leaves some of those oils unsoponified (not turned into soap) to give a soothing rich lather that WILL NOT DRY the skin. ALL the lye is used up - but not all the oils.

So what the recipe for the above Dove tells us is that some of the oils are left unsoponified.

OK, fine - which oils? Let's look. The highest percentage ingredient always goes first.

3 - beef fat
4 - palm oil
5 - either coconut oil or palm kernel oil

So, use Dove soap and that moisture you are feeling is beef fat.

Use a good soap from a handmade source and it will be either olive oil, or another vegetable oil. (I use a high percentage of olive in all my soaps)

Just make sure that your handmade supplier doesn't use Palm Oil - it's bad for you and it's bad for the Orangutans.