Teach Soap

Are cold process soaps biodegradable? I don't use any animal parts or products in my soap and I don't add anything to the oils except lye, water, and clays I do superfat my soap at about 5%. How is soap determined to be biodegradable?

Thanks,
Michele

Your question made me curious so I Asked Google. Curiosity then fell away and left irritation: why is it so hard to find the answer to this question? All I can find are dumbed down websites on how to make your own biodegradable soap, and not one single word on WHY a soap isn't biodegradable.

Poop.

The only thing worthwhile I could find was about phosphates. They used to be in soaps, but are illegal now. I guess phosphates don't break down further in the environment.

Home made soaps don't contain detergents and the ingredients are more earth friendly ,
Some cottage owners are asked not to use soaps with detergents as they are hard on the lake water
and home made soaps some contain coconut oil which is better bubbles in hard water common in cottage country
most homemade soap crafter try to minimise the amount of additives , so I think that's the closest thing to biodegradable
I don't know if that means we can call our soaps biodegradable maybe just more earth friendly

most of my customers are cottage owners who are told not to use detergent soaps . so homemade soaps are welcome at cottages

Handmade soap is biodegradable.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Thank you for everyone's responses. Now I know what to say when people ask me if it is biodegradable.

Thanks,
Michele

That's one of my best selling points here at the rental cabanas... Some of the owners (friends) notice that around the greywater catch the plants grow better. Before, the plants were struggling to survive the "aguajani" the ladies use for cleaning... Basically, premixed Chlorine & water, horrible stuff.

One complex has a lovely koi fish pond next to their greywater treatment catch (a field of papyrus, cattails & bamboo with a citrus garden below, as well as pergolas with grapes, kiwi fruit & bougainvillea). For sure, they want to protect this, and the bees & birds, etc. that visit it. Now they buy their guest soaps from me & INSIST that they not use other soaps... The garden has never been lovelier, altho I'm sure some tourists still use their preferred poison shampoos & conditioners. Biodegradable or not, people here love the fact that it DOES NOT CONTAMINATE the environment.

Now if we can get them to use natural sunscreen & not fry themselves like idiots... Sunscreen is really nasty & poisonous to so many marine creatures.

They stopped use of phosphates in our soaps, saying they contributed to overgrowth of algae & water weeds, such as hydrilla (water hyacinth) in streams & rivers... Actually, that was really caused by runoff from farmlands where it was being applied excessively. Runoff eventually ends up in the rivers & you have the nasty foaming around the edges of streams & ponds & reduces the oxygen so the fish can't breathe, etc...

Household use of soaps with phosphates, even in big cities, is nothing compared to phosphate fertilizer use (and land around phosphate mines in Florida, etc.). I use trisodium phosphate in my stain sticks for grease stains in work clothes, tar, etc. You can get this at any hardware store in the paint department. It's for removing/stripping old oil-based paints so a fresh layer of latex will adhere. Cheap & you use just a tiny bit. The local laundry lady is in LOVE with these & we do a "trade" - soaps & creams for laundry service (she's perfectionist like me). I'm in LOVE with her - if not for her, I'd still be doing laundry in a series of buckets & not have time for soaping.

Wow. I am shocked that it is that bad without the biodegradable products. I had not idea it could be that bad on the environment.

_________________
~Dharlee

I'm not up in the US now. The only soap we can get down here is from Palmolyuk or Duv or Uni-Leever... or worse, brands you'd never recognize, unbelievably harsh stuff. It gave me the "push" necessary to get me off my butt & making my own soap again...

The entire phosphate matter coulda been solved by Dept. of Agriculture, but then nobody would be making $$$ in the fertilizer industry, eh? Political power, nuff said.

Suffice to say that after redoing woodwork & flipping several houses back in the '80s, I became sensitized to bleach, ammonia, etc., basically everything. So, now I focus on soaps for folks with sensitive skin. Just needed that "dop" on the head.

I don't think there are any soaps up north as horrible as what's down here...

On the good side, we have no labeling regulations or anything like that. If it's an artesanal product, you can sell it any way you want to. My signs say all my ingredients are food quality (yes, even my lye is)... and that I'm selling "food for your skin."

Amazing how many women are buying beauty creams in the pharmacy here & can't get enough... then are SHOCKED to find out we use beautiful tallow as a base (as many commercial creams used to). They've been so "educated" to believe that grass-fed tallow is not good for the skin. What BS. I made 100% veg oil creams & they didn't like them as much. They sure don't remove wrinkles as well and can block pores.

Discussed with the pharmacy owner (a fan) and she said "just don't put it on the label," so now I don't. I have any essential or other conditioning oils listed, botanicals, etc. "in a base of natural moisturizing cream." Even my vegetarian friend uses my tallow skin creams after I explained that the cow's dead like it or not - might as well give her the respect of using every possible bit, eh?

You can use this as a selling point. The dread-locked "eco-girls" that come through down here love the Arabic wax because when it looks like a little hairball, they can throw it out in the yard & feed the ants & even the bees... Crazy, but one lady told me she saves the used wax balls to do just that... How "eco" can you get, I wonder...