Why We Begin With Organic Ingredients
Organic ingredients are at the center of everything we make.
We choose organic plant oils and butters, botanicals, and essential oils whenever they are available because how an ingredient is grown matters to us.
Organic farming improves environmental health, enhances soil quality, and reduces exposure to synthetic chemicals.
For us, these ingredients reflect the way we believe the best natural skincare should be made—simple, honest, and as close to nature as possible.
After more than 25 years of making natural soap, however, we have learned something equally important:
Exceptional ingredients don't automatically create exceptional soap or shampoo bars.
Organic Alone Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
Organic tells you how the ingredients were grown.
Formulation tells you how the bar was made.
As beautiful as they are, organic ingredients don't determine how a natural soap or shampoo bar will feel on your skin or scalp.
Our shampoo bars are made using the same traditional soapmaking process as our body and facial soaps, so the same principles apply.
Two bars can begin with nearly identical ingredients and end up completely different—one may feel a bit tight or drying, while another feels creamy, gentle, and balanced.
The difference isn't in the ingredients themselves—it's in how they're brought together by the soapmaker.
An ingredient list can tell you what went into a bar, but it can't tell you how those ingredients will work together in the finished product.
And that distinction matters when you're trying to choose the best natural soap.
What Does It Take to Create the Best Natural Soap?
Organic ingredients set the standard.
A skillfully formulated recipe brings them to life.
In traditional soapmaking—including the process we use to make our natural shampoo bars—ingredients are transformed through a chemical reaction to create soap and naturally occurring glycerin. That process—and the choices made within it—play just as important a role as the ingredients themselves.
Plant oils and butters are made up of different fatty acids, and each contributes different qualities to a finished bar.
Some help create hardness and longevity. Some contribute big, bubbly lather or dense, creamy lather. Some increase cleansing power, while others help create the mild, conditioning skin feel we want from a natural soap.
Adding an ingredient simply because it's trendy or looks impressive on a label does not make a better soap or shampoo bar.
For example, herbs and botanicals have long been an important part of many of our soap and shampoo recipes.
But their presence in a recipe needs to have a purpose.
We select each one for the properties we want to bring to a particular formula—not for label appeal.
So we slowly infuse them into our soapmaking oils, allowing their oil-soluble plant components to become part of the oil before it is incorporated into the recipe.
Plants are remarkably complex, and herbal oil infusions are one way we harness what they naturally have to offer.
Organic ingredients give us integrity.
Expert formulation gives us performance.
The best natural soap and shampoo bars need both.
What You Can't See on an Ingredient List
An exceptional ingredient list tells you that the soapmaker chose exceptional ingredients. It doesn't tell you whether those ingredients were brought together in a way that creates an exceptional bar of soap.
A label can tell you whether a bar contains coconut oil, olive oil, shea butter, herbs, clays, or essential oils. It can tell you whether ingredients are certified organic.
But there are important things it cannot tell you.
The Balance of the Recipe
The proportions of the oils and butters matter just as much as which oils are used.
Changing the amount of even one oil can change the hardness, cleansing ability, lather, longevity, and skin feel of the finished bar.
There is no single perfect balance, but there are certainly many poor ones. The skill lies in choosing proportions that bring the desired qualities together in a well-balanced bar that performs beautifully on skin or hair.
The Level of Superfatting
Superfatting means using more oils and butters than the lye can convert into soap, leaving a portion of those oils in the finished bar.
It is one of the choices a soapmaker can make to create a milder, more moisturizing soap.
But you won't find a "superfat percentage" on an ingredient label.
Two soaps can list very similar oils and butters while containing very different amounts of unreacted oils in the finished bars—and that can make a very big difference in how they feel on your skin.
The Time Allowed for Curing
Freshly made natural soap needs time to mature.
As soap cures, water gradually evaporates, and the bar becomes harder, milder, longer-lasting, and more refined. Giving a bar plenty of time to cure properly requires patience, space, planning, and inventory sitting on a shelf rather than being sold.
You won't see "patiently cured" in an ingredient list, but you can feel the difference when you use the bar.
The choice and balance of oils, the level of superfatting, the use of botanical infusions, and the care taken in crafting and curing all influence how a bar lathers, how long it lasts, and how your skin or hair feels after use.
Where Experience Makes the Difference
The ingredients tell you where the story begins.
The finished bar tells you what the soapmaker was able to create from them.
When you choose a natural soap or shampoo bar, you're choosing more than the ingredients listed on the label.
You're also choosing the knowledge, experience, standards, and decisions of the company that created it.
Anyone can follow a soap recipe. Developing an original recipe means deciding exactly what you want the finished bar to be—and knowing how to get there.
Some of that knowledge comes from chemistry. Much of it comes from experience.
After more than 25 years of making natural soap, we have seen how seemingly small changes can transform a recipe.
A little more of one oil may improve lather but change the skin feel. Another butter may add hardness but reduce bubbles. Increasing the superfat may create a more conditioning bar but shorten its lifespan.
There is always a balance.
Over time, you learn not simply what an ingredient is supposed to do, but what it actually does in a real bar of soap, in real water, and on real skin.
While the ingredients in natural soaps may look very similar on paper, the finished bars can be remarkably different in quality, performance, and the way they feel on your skin.
When choosing the best natural soap, ingredients can only take a soap so far. It is the soapmaker's knowledge and experience that determines what those ingredients ultimately become.
Why Organic Ingredients Still Matter
None of this diminishes the importance of organic ingredients.
Quite the opposite.
We have maintained our organic certification for years because we believe how ingredients are grown and sourced matters. The standards behind the ingredients we choose matter—to us, to the farmers who grow them, and to the environment.
But organic ingredients and skilled soapmaking tell you two different things.
Organic sets standards for how our ingredients begin.
Knowledge and experience determine what we can create with them.
We want both.
Whether we are creating a soap for skin or a shampoo bar for hair, beautifully crafted products aren't enough if the ingredients don't meet our standards.
And an impressive list of organic ingredients isn't enough if the finished product doesn't meet our standards for quality and performance.
For us, organic ingredients and the quality and performance of the finished bar go hand in hand.
The Bottom Line
Organic ingredients matter.
Formulation matters.
More than 25 years of making natural soap has taught us that exceptional ingredients and exceptional soapmaking cannot be separated.
One sets the standard for what goes into the bar; the other determines what that bar becomes.
The feel of a bar — the creaminess, the gentleness, the balance — comes from the hands that craft it and the choices made along the way.
*Begin with exceptional organic ingredients.
*Know how to bring them together.
We believe the best natural soap and shampoo bars come from both, and we never compromise one for the other.
You, the customer, should never have to choose between exceptional organic ingredients and exceptional performance.
You deserve both.
This article was originally published in December 2013 and has been updated to improve clarity and expand on key details. The principles behind our products and philosophy have not changed.
Continue Exploring Natural Soap
Curious to learn more? See the articles below.
- Why Use Natural Soap? 12 Reasons to Choose Chagrin Valley Soap
- A Deep Dive Into The Chemistry of Natural Soap Making
- Why Use Natural Soap? What Makes It Different?
- Are All Handmade Soaps the Same?
- How Does Natural Soap Create Lather?
- How We Make Natural Soap Bars
- The Truth Behind the “War on Natural Soap”
- Natural Soap Notes: Aroma, Texture & Lather
- Are Bar Soaps Hygienic?
