Ida's Soap Box

Essential oils are temperamental to work under any circumstance. While a natural essential oil scent blend may change a bit when combined with virgin oils in a cream, these blends are especially unpredictable when natural making cold processed soap. Why doesn't my new soap bar smell the same as the last one? After all my years of soapmaking in never ceases to amaze me just how much the actual soapmaking process changes the scent of an essential oil blend.

Somehow bar soap has come under fire as a being a source of bacteria. The strange thing is that when I was a little girl (a long time ago) we had one bathroom and one bar of soap that was shared by the entire family. We never thought anything of it and we seldom got sick.

Although handmade soaps usually get better with age, we recommend using our unscented soaps within 12 months of purchase, and our scented soaps within 6-10 months for best results. Although the soaps will not be "spoiled" after that time, you may notice that some natural colors and the scents from pure natural essential oils will fade over time.

While the process for making a shampoo bar is the same as making soap and the ingredients are similar, a well-formulated shampoo bar is not your typical soap bar. Shampoo bar "recipes" are tweaked to use different proportions of oils and butters and to include botanicals, like nettles right, herb infused oils and essential oils that are known to help nourish the hair and scalp.