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Pure and Natural Soap
Many
herbs are the pure and natural ingredients in soap that are
great for sensitive skin. When you have a bar of natural
soap in your hand, you’ve finally found the product
that will do wonders for your hard-to-manage skin. Natural
soaps can help improve acne or any skin problems.
What will you need to make your own natural soaps? For a
basic soap, you’ll only need water, lye, and some kind
of fat and oil. For a more luxurious soap, you might want
to add coloring dyes and scenting oils. You probably have
water as close as your kitchen tap; some people prefer to
use rainwater or distilled water in their soap.
 So what about the oil? Just about any fat or oil can be used
to make soap, from plant oils and hydrogenated fats
to animal fats. If you have a chance to experiment, you’ll
find plant oils such as coconut oils will give a rich
lather; olive oil soap will yield fine, silky bubbles that
are soothing to the skin; and animal fats give you a denser
soap.
‘Saponification’ is the technical name for the
chemical process between lye and fat. It may take more or
less time to ‘trace,’ but when it does and your
batch starts to thicken, that’s the time to add super
fatting agents like avocado oil, cocoa butter, or shea
butter. Then, pour the traced soap into molds, and let
it harden. It will have to ‘cure’ for one to three
days, and then dry a bit longer before you can enjoy it.
If you make your own pure and natural
soaps, you can add extra vegetable fats towards
the end of the process. The result will be a super-fatted
soap that your dry skin will love. Or, if you’d like
a soap that helps make your skin smooth and soft, add
glycerin to the soap. You’ll find that a glycerin
soap will cleanse your skin without drying it.
Essential oils are also natural ingredients that you’ll
love to smell every day. You probably already know these as
the pleasant-smelling oils that are used an aromatherapy.
You can choose between sharp Mediterranean scents such
as Basil, Bergamot, or Peppermint; softer scents such
as Clary sage, Sage, and Thyme, or therapeutic oils
such as Coriander, Eucalyptus, Lemon Grass, and Neroli.
These oils will help counteract the lye smell that hand-made
soap has a tendency to develop over time.
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