Teach Soap

Someone just brought me a big (10 oz) bar of soap in a fancy wrapper, made by an Italian company, Alchimia. Supposed to be 'hand made'. Here are the ingredients:

1. sodium palmate
2. sodium palm kernelate
3. water
4. fragrance
5. salt
6. glycerin
7. tetra sodium etidronate (a chelating agent similar to EDTA)
8. EDTA
9. hexyl cinnamal (a fragrance)
10. linalool (a fragrance)
11. hydroxy isohexyl 3 cyclohexene carboxaldehyde (or Lyral) - (a fragrance)
12. benzyl salicylate (a fragrance)

Note that item 12 is a restricted substance by the international fragrance foundation, known to cause allergies esp. to eczema sufferers.

The soap is white, no colours, and is incredibly hard. My wire cutter had no effect. I tried a soap knife and the soap shattered, not possible to cut it at all - it is extremely brittle. It does lather quite well but it is not a bubbly lather but more like a Castille type lather.

It seems to me that this soap is made using nothing but palm and palm kernel oil. Have you come across this kind of soap before? It seems to sell for around $11 (USD) per bar. Your comments will be read with much interest.

Handmade? Not likely. It sounds more like a commercial made, triple milled soap, that has gone through extruders. The power of fancy advertising and labels....

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

That's what I thought. "Hand made" as in, "Someone's hand pushed the button to turn the machine on"
But to make it entirely of palm and palm kernel?

Looks like it won't lather much.

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

It has the consistency of very hard candle wax and that is what it looks like. Doesn't make big bubbles.
Their Web site says "under construction"!

I found a label online. It says that it's Luxury Triple Milled Vegetable based soap bar Enriched with Natural Glycerin. So it is commercial made, not handmade. You cannot triple rebatch handmade soaps and have it come out as white, hard and smooth. It has to be "enriched" with glycerin because when commercially made soaps are made they take the glycerin out so it doesn't gum up the rollers. It is added back at a later stage. So it's just BS.

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

Thanks!

But for the general public they would not know the difference. I did not until I started to study soap making. The public hears bits and pieces of what is good and bad. If fact many times the scientific community cannot decide if something is good for us...LIKE COFFEE!

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

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

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Linda

I learn so much when I can't leave well enough alone!

Well it had me going for a while until I tried to cut it. Of course I am a trusting soul.

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

Imagine cutting a bar of ice. It shatters. That is exactly what happened. Of course I was thinking 'hand made' haha.

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

gosh! and how they like to put "special shampoo with the bestest of avocado oil" and the avocado oil in the shampoo goes on the last place, after fragrance, about 1%. And the list starts: aqua, sodium lauryl sulfate...methylparaben.. blah, blah, blah.

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I am Lora