Coconut oil as a soap ingredient

At Waterfall Glen Soap Company, we took a lot of time to discover all vegan oils that create our perfect soap bar for you. In my 20’s we used to experiment with a music equalizer for that perfect sound? Moving the bass, treble and mid tone sound bars up and down to create that perfect effect for your speakers.  Creating that perfect bar of soap is very similar to working with a sound bar equalizer.

Natural soaps are made from a balance of oils (acid) and sodium hydroxide (lye) base.  If you do it right, the final product is luxurious and gets you clean.  Too much acid, or oil and your soap bars will rot.  Too much base and you’ll achieve the effect of ‘Grandma’s lye soap’ – a hard, brittle and dry washing experience and frankly, no fun.

So, like an equalizer, imagine a graph with the oils you choose, each bringing its unique properties and all of the oils together have to balance out to a formula that equals 100%.  

You are trying to achieve a hard, long lasting bar that is luxurious, moisturizing and cleansing. So, a little of this and a little of that might work – once.  But, knowing that we manufacture thousands of bars each month, we need to have a formula that consistently produces the same luxurious soapy experience.  We did a heck of a lot of research and looked at every oil imaginable. We found four that work great for many reasons.  Today, we will share some cool properties of one of them:  Coconut oil.

Coconut oil has been found to be a safe and effective moisturizer for conditions like xerosis or improving your hair health.   Xerosis??  What’s that?  Sounds funny?  According to the Mayo Clinic and Webster’s Dictionary, Xerosis is “Dry skin that can have causes which aren’t due to underlying disease. Examples include dry environment, frequently washing hands, inadequate hydration, swimming in a chlorinated pool, or jobs that are rough on the hands such as mechanics or farming.”  Webster’s describes it as “abnormal dryness of a body part or tissue (as the skin or conjunctiva).”

So, it’s a good source of skin moisture. What else is so special about coconut oil?

It’s jam packed with holistic healing properties that can treat a multitude of skin conditions like anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal and even anti-inflammatory qualities.  Coconut oil is steeped in antioxidants which is why it’s an excellent choice for fighting acne or dealing with eczema.

If you’re using natural soap with coconut oil in the ingredients, expect superb moisturising benefits to the skin. Coconut oil is also loaded with ‘supersonic friends of your body’ like:  Lauric, Capric and Caprylic Acid.  These powerhouse acids are superhero’s against bacteria, microbes, yeast and fungi.  They also block those crazy ‘free radicals’ caused from sun damage.  It has superb cleansing power, rich, stable lather AND…  it makes a bar of soap hard.  

Why is a hard bar of soap such a good thing?  Well, for one, who likes using mushy soap?  We don’t and we think you don’t either.  A hard bar of soap simply lasts longer.  When you are paying for a quality natural soap bar, you sure want it to last longer than a couple uses, right? We think so, too.  So, coconut oil with all of its rockstar ingredients, also contributes to a longer lasting soapy experience.

What about coconut oil soap lather?

Coconut oil in soap making creates a small, stable lather.  Just so you know…. Lather, doesn’t make you clean.  It’s simply ‘pleasing to the eye’.  It’s psychological and companies that make a bar of soap that produces big amounts of lather most likely are using chemicals that aren’t good for your skin or the environment, such as 

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate or SLS.  

 The World Health Organization has listed SLS to irritate the skin, causing problems, such as:

• Skin and eye irritations
• Dermatitis, eczema, psoriasis
• Skin rashes
• Hormonal disruptions
• Dizziness and headaches

But our biggest concern is:  

SLS is considered toxic to aquatic life and on its own is not recommended to be discharged into the environment (including down the drain). This recommendation is for full concentration of SLS rather than the amount that would be found in household products.

Maybe your single soap bar isn’t going to hurt the fish but rather, hundreds, if not thousands of people using this ingredient definitely WILL harm the environment.  As we are all becoming more and more aware, we are all linked in one big biosphere.

So, we don’t use it. Not a bit. Not at all in anything we manufacture at Waterfall Glen Soap Company. Because we care about fish, fur and fowl. We also are 99% plastic free with all of our packaging and shipping. But, this topic is another post and we have a lot to share.