Teach Soap

Hi everyone. We just return from a 2 day flea market and selling our soaps. The weather was ok so we had some good sales. I am curious about how you explain to people that homemade soap has lye in it. Supersoap taught me a saying that was "No lye no soap and that is no lie". But I had some people ask me if I put lye in our soaps. I told them yes then they said it was too harsh and we should not sell it to people. How is a nice way to explain to people that lye is ok and will not hurt them if it is in good homemade soaps? Do people here get questions like that also about the lye?

I don't do shows or sell but people ask me how I make soap when they find out I make soap. I try to summarize by saying I take the lye water and the oils, mix, and then a chemical process called saponification happens where, abracadabra, I have soap. I couldn't imagine having to explain that 400x a day at a market.

Maybe you could put up some sort of FAQ poster at your table explaining all of that and anything else people ask you about the chemical process? Not to sound mean but people can be very stupid and ignorant about things they know nothing about, so maybe if you show them and answer some questions they'll feel more knowledgeable and confident in your product.

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ween rules

I get people that don't want to believe whatever I tell them about the saponification process. Then there are people that were told by sellers of MP that there is never lye in their soap. All soap starts with lye. The best thing that you can do is to educate them. If they believe fine, if they don't, they don't. Shrug.

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

maybe instead of just saying "yes", you can say, "yes, all soap is made with lye". that at least gives them some comfort level, and you might be able to have a discussion about it. there are quite a few people out there who are not interested in what you have to say, though - they're interested in what they have to tell you. if they don't want to listen, the best thing is to let it go and move on. sad, i know.

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http://www.magichandsworkshop.com
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Well, I guess you could answer that with "Oh...you used some soap that was harsh? Do you remember where it was from?" and maybe get more info from them. It *could* be that their grandma used lard/lye soap "back in the day" with little superfat that used to "peel the enamel off a pan" kwim? LIke, they've just heard, but not experienced. One thing that I have a hard time with is when people say "what is your soap made out of?" They could be asking if it's fragrance oil versus essential oil, coconut bar versus goat milk soap, M&P versus CP....I am all about full disclosure, but I want to get better about figuring out what EXACTLY they want to ask when they say "What's in your soap?" kinda like "Is your soap all natural?" because there are people that SAY that, but you know, lye's made in a lab....

I tell people that all soap has lye, and that in a properly formulated recipe, all the lye is combined with the oils, so that you're left with a soap molecule and a glycerin molecule. Then I say that, just to be on the safe side and to give my soaps more skin loving qualities, I add more oil than the lye can 'eat', so that even if there is some slight measurement error (I mean we're all human, right?) there is more than enough oil in the soap to make sure that it is skin safe (superfatting for dummies lol). I also tell them that I check the pH and make sure that it is safe for skin prior to sale. Some of my friends are kind of techie geeks and always ask something like, "Really? There's no other way to make soap but to use lye?" And then I explain that, there are indeed plants that produce a saponifying agent, but that it's much more risky that way b/c it's not as chemically controlled and that I've never seen or heard of anyone doing it that way. In fact, I've only seen it mentioned briefly on a few websites and in some books.

I get their concern, though, b/c when I bought my first bar of handmade soap and saw that it said "lye" I cringed and headed right to google before I would use it. :blushes: