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.
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
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...