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Hand Made Soap and Shampoo |
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Annabelles Natural soaps and shampoos are all handmade in small batches using the cold process method. We use plant based ingredients including natural oils, butters and waxes. This creates a gentle, mild soap which is rich in unsaturated fatty acids, moisturising and cleaning your skin without the addition of harsh, synthetic chemicals. | |
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Our base recipe uses a selection of: olive oil to nourish and condition palm kernel oil, coconut oil and castor oil to create a rich lather, and palm oil to make a long lasting bar. We then enrich the soap with a variety of nourishing oils and butters including macadamia nut oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, jojoba oil, avocado oil and almond oil. We use natural clays and botanicals to colour our soaps, as well as ultramarines, which are cosmetically approved pigments.
To our naturally moisturising bases we add either essential oils or fragrant oils to complete the experience. If you insist on a product that is completely natural, then try either one of our Essential Soaps with natural colouring, or maybe a creamy, unscented goats milk castile soap. Our Fragrant Soaps have been aromatically enhanced with fragrant oils. |
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You can also read more about using natural shampoo bars. |
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 Let's Talk about Soap |
| Cold Process |
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Annabelles Natural's soaps are all made by hand, using the cold process method. This involves warming the oils so that the solid oils become liquid and warm enough to react with the lye. We keep this heating to a minimum to prevent destroying the properties of the oils. The oils and the lye are then mixed, essential oils and botanicals added, and the creamy mixture is then poured into moulds to set.
After 24 to 48 hours the soap is unmoulded and cut. It is then left to cure for a minimum of 4 weeks. This ensures that excess water evaporates from the bars and that the saponification process is completed. No chemicals are added to speed up the process, and we do not remove the glycerine from the soap. This method creates a gentle cleansing soap full of moisturising glycerine and oils.
The rich, creamy lather produced by our soaps, is created by the high quality oils used to make them. We do not add any synthetic enhancers such as sodium lauryl sulphate. Most of the colours in our soaps are from natural ingredients such as organic clay, cocoa and alkanet root. Occasionally we use cosmetic grade ultramarines for rich, longer lasting colour. You can find out more about hand made soaps on the Real Hand Made Soap website. |
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| Lye |
| Lye is a strong alkali solution. We use sodium hydroxide for solid soaps and potassium hydroxide for liquid soaps. We know that this sounds pretty scary, but although lye is caustic, mixing it with the oils changes the lye. A chemical reaction takes place between the sodium hydroxide (or potassium hydroxide) and the fatty acids in the oil, turning it into soap and glycerine. By the time the soap has fully cured, there is no trace of sodium hydroxide. |
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| Superfatting |
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To make extra sure that all the lye is used up, we superfat our soaps, which means that we add more oil than we need to use up all the lye. This results in the soap not only being safe and mild, but also extra moisturising.
To further enhance the benefits of our soap we add the extra nourishing oils towards the end of the soapmaking process. This means that the superfatting oils or butters do not become soap, but stay in the bar to moisturise your skin. Some of the superfatting oils we use are olive, coconut, macadamia and avocado oils as well as shea butter and cocoa butter. |
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| Saponification |
| Saponification is an organic chemical reaction. Sodium hydroxide mixes with the fatty acids in the oils and produces soap and glycerine. |
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| Castile Soap |
| Castile soap is made from olive oil. A soap can be classified as castile if its oil content is more than 50% olive oil. It is mild and suitable for sensitive skin. Most of our soaps contain olive oil for its conditioning properties. Our castile soaps are close to 100% olive oil. |
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Glycerine |
| Glycerine is a by product of saponification. It is a natural humectant and moisturiser. Commercial production of soap involves the removal of glycerine, which is then sold separately. The glycerine is not removed from our soaps. |
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