Coconut oil as a soap ingredient

At Waterfall Glen Soap Company, we took much time to discover all vegan oils that create our perfect soap bar for you. In my 20s, we experimented with a music equalizer for that perfect sound. Moving the bass, treble, and mid-tone sound bars up and down creates that ideal effect for your speakers. Creating that perfect soap bar is 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. If you use too much acid or oil, 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 lot of research and looked at every oil imaginable. We found four that work great for many reasons. Today, we will share some remarkable properties of one of them: Coconut oil.

Coconut oil is a safe and effective moisturizer for conditions like xerosis or improving 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 that 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 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 many skin conditions like anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal, and even anti-inflammatory qualities. Coconut oil is steeped in antioxidants, so it’s an excellent choice for fighting acne or eczema.

If you’re using natural soap with coconut oil in the ingredients, expect superb moisturizing 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 superheroes against bacteria, microbes, yeast, and fungi. They also block those crazy ‘free radicals’ caused by sun damage. It has superb cleansing power, prosperous, stable lather, AND… makes a soap bar 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 rigid bar of soap lasts longer. When paying for a quality natural soap bar, you want it to last longer than a couple of uses. We think so, too. So, with its rockstar ingredients, coconut oil also contributes to a longer-lasting soapy experience.

What about coconut oil soap lather?

Coconut oil in soap-making creates a slight, stable lather. So that 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 significant amounts of lather are most likely 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 the total concentration of SLS rather than the amount found in household products.

Maybe your single soap bar doesn’t hurt the fish, but hundreds, if not thousands, of people using this ingredient definitely WILL harm the environment. As we become increasingly aware, we are all linked in one significant biosphere.

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