Why Use Natural Soap?

Rodney Doss
Mar 27, 2019
4 min read

An amber bottle of oil with a plant inside next to a stack of natural handmade soap on a white background. best man soap, man soap, doss man soap, natural soap, handmade soap,

Soap simply isn’t what it was when my grandma made it. Several commercial soaps on supermarket shelves share more in common with household detergents than actual soap. As you grab your chest let me show you. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), reports.

“Today there are very few true soaps on the market. Most body cleansers, both liquid and solid, are actually synthetic detergent products.’

What’s really in your soap?

Two Very Different Products

True soap is made by combining oils or fats and lye. The chemical reaction that takes place is called saponification and the end product is a combination of soap and glycerin. The benefits of each oil remains. Other natural ingredients, like Shea butter for skin nourishment or oatmeal for exfoliation properties can be added. No synthetic chemicals are necessary.

Alternatively, mass-produced synthetic soaps are robbed of their most valuable ingredient, glycerin. Immediately,after the saponification process. Glycerin attracts moisture to your skin and is best known as a soothing emollient. Money-driven soap manufacturers separate the glycerin from the soap to sell or use in other more expensive products. Synthetic ingredients, detergents, foaming agents and chemical fragrances are added back in place of the glycerin.

Why You Should Choose Natural Soap

Would you shower with this?

From Grandma to Garbage

There was once a time when the only soap I used was made by grandma. The traditional way. It was, and still is, called cold processed. Once the mixture is prepared it’s poured into molds to saponify for a particular amount of time, taken out to air dry, and then cut into bars of soap and left to cure for six weeks or more. That is as natural as it gets, and that is how we make our natural soap here at Doss Man Soap. But when it was discovered that glycerin could be separated from soap, everything changed.

Eventually small handmade soap makers were forced out by bigger companies. One example, glycerin is an essential ingredient in more expensive cosmetics, and and there was much demand for it at the beginning of 20th century in bomb making. The new glycerin-free soap was mixed with cheap synthetic ingredients to mimic true soap, and was sold much cheaper than traditional handmade soap makers could compete with.

Exactly What You Don’t Need

An average bar of soap in your local store could contain sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), a non-ionic surfactant used in laundry detergent. SLS has been known to irritate and dry out your skin. Another unsavory ingredient you'll find may be sodium laureth sulfate (SLES), a cut-rate foaming agent. While being manufactured SLES can become contaminated with the possible carcinogen Dioxane.

What's even worse is if it's labeled as antibacterial. If it is, it probably contains triclosan. The Environmental Protection Agency classifies this chemical as a pesticide. More than half all of antibacterial liquid soaps and antibacterial bar soaps contain triclosan. Science is saying this is contributing to an increase in bacterial resistance throughout the world. This chemical leaches into our water supply, disrupting our food chain. In 2009 CDC’s Fourth National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals finds significant levels of triclosan in the urine of 75% of the U.S. population during 2003-2004. To add insult to injury, decades of FDA research has concluded that antibacterial soaps are really no better than just washing with real soap and water.

Woman in hazmat suit wearing a gas mask and orange gloves washing white plates and cups in a stainless steel sink

The bad thing about it is, even if your soap says soap on the packaging that doesn’t not mean it is real soap. Manufacturers can describe their product as soap even when it is just a budget toxin-riden spurious substitute of real soap. I would advise you to check the label and make sure it contains only natural ingredients, just as real soap should.

Naturally What You Do Need

The list of natural oils, butters, plant extracts and exfoliants that can be used in real soap, ingredients that are genuinely good for your skin and overall health is very long. Coconut oil, for example with it’s moisturizing and disinfectant properties along with vitamin E, are essential for healthy skin. Shea butter, with its skin healing properties that have been held in high regard since the time of the Pharaohs in Ancient Egypt is another Doss Man Soap main ingredient. Natural antibacterial and antifungal properties can be experienced with pine tar, while charcoal and sea salt detoxify and exfoliate. Real soaps don’t have to just clean you, they can make you healthier and make you feel a whole lot better, and smell better too.