- fragrant handcrafted soaps are a pleasure to use.
- Great eye appeal
- Fresh scent of our soaps add a fresh scent to any room.
- Soft, smooth skin from using our luxury affordable soap.
- Our handmade soap can be used on hair, face and body, cutting down the need for multiple products.
- Handcrafted soap is alcohol free, unlike some of those liquid soaps on the market.
- We believe in conservation and keep our use of paper for labels to a minimum.
- Lotion is usually not needed after using our soap. This is due to the glycerin which is a byproduct of saponification. Our soaps deeply condition your skin.
The Older The Better
Just like fine wine, handmade soaps get better with age. Don't be alarmed to find that as time goes on your handmade soap gets smaller and harder. As the moisture evaporates out of your bar of soap, the bar naturally gets smaller and harder. In fact, the harder the soap, the longer it lasts when showering.
Keep extra bars of soap out of the bathroom and in a dry place
Here at the Oregon Soap Shoppe, we take our time handcrafting
your soap. We blend precious, expensive essential oils, at low temperatures, to help retain the naturally made glycerin in every bar. The lower the temperature, the higher the quality of the bar. In fact, this "cold process" helps create a soap that is milder, moister, and creamier... making the soap lather more without the use of chemically-made ingredients.
It takes several hours to cook and stir the ingredients to make a single batch of soap. We then have to wait 4 to 6 weeks for the soap to cure before we can cut the bars.
Wooden Boxes - Retaining Moisture
Wood retains heat. And heat helps produce glycerin. We stack several batches of soap on top each other and cover them with a wool blanket. After three days, the boxes are still warm, which means that the soaps are curing properly; otherwise known as the "saponification chemical in the soap.
Ingredients Used to Handcraft Our Soaps
What's in our soap?
Unless otherwise noted, all soaps contain these basic ingredients:
Saponified Lard
Yes, lard is animal fat. Yes, it sounds disgusting to think we put it on our skin. But, God gave us this wonderful product to use and use it we shall. For centuries, lard was used as a base for healing ointments and salves because of its natural ability to soften skin. Another great aspect of lard is that it can easily be absorbed by the skin.
Coconut Oil
Coconut oil is a great natural moisturizer that is kind to both your hair and your skin.
Olive Oil
Olive Oil is great for your skin and helps with the conditioning of your hair. The secret lies in the soothing vitamin E, minerals, and proteins that are found in olive oil.
Soybean Oil
Since your hair is made of proteins and soy bean oil is a natural protein, it makes sense that it can help your hair become more healthy and manageable.
Castor Oil
Castor oil is a really thick oil used for its tremendous moisturizing qualities. It penetrates deep within your skin and hair, to offer a natural nourishment.
Palm Kernal Oil
Palm kernal oil is a hard, pure, snow white oil that provides an incredible lather. It is used in only the best luxury soaps.
Fragrance and/or Essential Oils
Essential Oils are highly concentrated and potent oils extracted from plants, leaves, flowers, roots, buds, twigs, rhizomes, heartwood, bark, resin, seeds and fruits. Each essential oil has it's very own blueprint that is absolutely unique. The combination of the plants blueprints, the energy of the sun, soil, air and water gives each oil its individual perfume and beneficial healing properties. The same species of plant can produce an essential oil with different properties depending on whether it was grown in dry or damp earth, at high or low altitude, or even in hot or cold climates.We do use fragrance oils in some of our soaps, to give our soaps a nice fresh smell!
Silk Proteins
Silk Proteins are added so that every bar of our soap can be used as a shampoo bar making your hair silky soft.
Honey
Honey contains "skin vitamins" and dates back to the days of Cleopatra. Because honey is a humectant, it attracts and retains water, which makes it naturally perfect to add to our soaps. Honey is a natural antibacterial and very safe for the skin and environment. The acids in honey have been known to help one’s skin look youthful. That’s why you‘ll find it in many of the rejuvenating creams and lotions on the market today.
Natural Beeswax
Our natural beeswax & honey comes from a local beekeeper.
Beeswax contains micro nutrients and helps keep your bar of soap smooth and longer lasting.
Our organic herb garden is just outside our kitchen door and provides enough herbs for our wonderful handmade soaps. We use small amounts of dried herbs to enhance the unique, earthy look of some of our soaps.
What you won't find in our soaps
While some handmade soap manufacturer's use commercial soap bits for adding chunkiness to their soaps, We pride ourselves on only using all-natural ingredients. Any chunks you find in your soaps, are from our own handmade stash.
