Tuesday 17 January 2012

Natural Soap Recipe

You watch your diet and eat more natural fruits and vegetables. Are you also watching what you are putting on your body everyday? Those beauty soap bars people have used for decades have contained numerous chemicals! No wonder you have been dosing yourself with lotions and creams to prevent dryness and ageing. Have you thought of making soaps at home?

Pamper Your Skin, Go Natural

The human skin is the largest part of the body and its role is to prevent bacteria and germs from entering the body. It protects the internal organs, muscles, ligaments and bones. Because it is the body's outer covering, it is prone to infections and rashes. To keep it in good condition, special care must be given to the skin to keep it supple, smooth and well nourished.

The beauty industry capitalizes on the skin care needs - creams and lotions - to moisturize the skin. However, to keep costs down, man-made chemicals are used instead of organic substances. Using these commercial products especially soap, does the skin more harm than good. Over the years, the constant use of these commercial preparations builds up the level of toxins on the external and internal body organs.

Instead of lathering your skin with commercial soaps, go natural and make your own soap. Making soaps is not a difficult hobby. Choose handmade soap over industrial or commercial soap. Homemade soap is best for the skin because it is mild and does not contain chemicals that can irritate the skin. It also keeps the skin well-hydrated and younger looking -- so much for pricy skin moisturizers.

Make Your Own Soaps

Soap making is not difficult and you can start with the basic recipes. It's all mix and match and stirring and of course, watching the temperatures when working with lye. Get an easy soap making recipe or sign up with a soap-making class. Here you will discover how to rebatch soap so there's no waste if a batch fails.

Making soaps is easy. Start with basic recipes. You will need simple utensils - stainless steel pots, stainless mixing bowls, wooden beaters, measuring cups, and molders. Because you are going to handle lye, a caustic substance, invest in thick rubber gloves, protective goggles, apron, and long-sleeved shirts. For the soap ingredients, stock on base oils, additives for scent, Vitamin E, exfoliants and glycerin and other natural skin beauty enhancers. There's no end to what you can add to your homemade soap to keep your skin pampered.

The trick in making your homemade soap is in the accuracy of measurement and following the preparation sequence to the letter. Before you start your first soap making enterprise, make sure you have all the tools and supplies on hand. You will eventually learn the ropes and learn a few techniques.

With the best organic ingredients you are using for your homemade soap, you give your skin the best pampering ever. No more expensive glycerin soaps or commercial soaps for you and your family. You can control the ingredients for your soaps and choose scents that you love. Here's a bonus - homemade soap is cheaper because you can make dozens of soap bars for the entire family. Everybody will surely adore the fresh scented soaps with a different feel.

Homemade Soap Benefits

Homemade soap definitely have an edge over factory produced bars - it's gentle on our bodies and a lot cheaper. Thanks to the natural ingredients used in making homemade soap. Start making soaps and you can enjoy healthy, safer soaps with all your favorite scents and ingredients.

The Glycerin Gap

A bar of commercial bath soap can last you two weeks but a bar of clear glycerin soap has a lifespan of three to four days. Commercial bath soaps are harder because the naturally-occurring glycerin, a by-product of the soap preparation is removed and used in beauty creams and shampoos. Animal or vegetable fat and lye is the major ingredient in basic and easy soap making.

Animal and vegetable fat contain naturally occurring glycerin; lye is the by-product of ash and water. In commercial preparation, salt is added to lye and animal or vegetable fats concoction to separate and extract glycerin. In contrast, homemade soap preparation leaves the glycerin in the mix. The glycerin removed from commercial soap is used as an important ingredient in creams, lotions, and shampoos because glycerin keeps the skin and hair soft and smooth.

A commercial soap bar does not contain glycerin whilst your homemade soap is loaded with this important natural skin softener. Try using commercial bath soap on your hair, and you have dry coarse hair. To solve the problem, you lather your hair with expensive shampoo. However, glycerin soap can be used on the hair aswell and you get fantastic results.

Glycerin is a natural humectants. It is non-oily sweet-tasting liquid that attracts moisture in the environment. It is also colorless. When mixed with water or alcohol, it dissolves easily but not when combined with fragrant oils. This explains well why glycerin soap melts faster than commercial soap and why it is a favorite with scented creams, moisturizing gels and lotions.

Humectants keep the skin smooth and supple. Since this is not a man-made chemical, glycerin is does not irritate the skin. In fact glycerin soap is always recommended for individuals with sensitive to dry skin. As beauty soap, it keeps the facial skin smooth and clear. Hence, glycerin spells the big difference between commercial and homemade soap.

Baby Care

Babies and young children benefit from homemade soap because it does not contain toxic chemicals such as sodium lauryl sulphate or SLS. SLS causes the foaming in soaps. This chemical is used also in shampoos and degreasing agents to remove grease from engines. If this chemical can remove grease, it can remove the body's natural oils, causing dry skin which leads to skin rashes and irritations, and eczema. Also, would you want your baby's tender and sensitive skin to absorb this chemical? Definitely not.

Therefore, making soaps gives you complete control in deciding what ingredients to use. You can choose ingredients that are safe for baby's hair and scalp, too. High quality organic ingredients are always used for homemade soap. You can make them yourself or order these online from experienced homemade soap makers.

Monday 5 December 2011

Vivel - Luxury Soap Range For You!

Vivel’s new Luxury Creme range (comes in 2 variants – Shea butter and Olive butter) comes in a fabulously rich packing that I’m yet to see for any soap in India!

A few observations before showing you how it looks.

1. For a ‘luxury’ soap, INR 25 seems mighty low. So the perceived value for a customer may be quite high, at that price.

2. Again, for that price, the packing is nothing short of brilliant! Most soaps in India come in paper packing that you discard after removing the soap. Some (like Dove) come in cardboard cartons, but are also usually priced much higher.

3. At 72% TFM (the Shea butter variant; strangely the Olive butter one comes with 74% TFM), it seems mighty low (for a luxury soap; but that perhaps explains the price) in comparison to the highest TFM I’ve seen among Indian soaps – the old (original) Cinthol…at 79%. That Cinthol happens to be my all-time favorite soap…I seem to go back to it after trying out new soaps occasionally.

4. Also in comparison, ITC’s premium range of soaps with the Fiama Di Wills (Skinsense – soft green) brand name retails for INR 45 and DOES NOT mention any TFM rating in its carton. I wonder if some soaps are exempt from mentioning the TFM rating. Most importantly, this INR 45 soap comes in a normal looking carton!

5. This soap’s carton comes shrink-wrapped and there’s a handy strip to start peeling the wrap too – you may open the entire thing in the least clumsy manner and have an intact carton after removing the soap. When you peel off the wrap, there are helpful instructions on the side, with perforation. You just need to use your finger tips to cut through it and voilĂ …you have a perfectly opened pack of soap box! For a INR 25 soap, that’s a LOT of effort in terms of product packaging design, but yes…it all looks beautiful and perfect!

6. The soap smells good – you thought I’ll never come to the actual point of the damn soap, huh?