Handmade Natural Soap Base by Soap Lab Malaysia: The Experiment

In the market currently there are many types of soap bases. Soap base are the easiest entry method on making handmade soap.Click here to find out the different methods in soap making.
All you have to do is melt the soap in the microwave for 10-20 seconds, add your fragrance, essential oil and colours, pour into mold and thats it. Its done ; your very own handmade soap! (Click here to view free video tutorial on melt and pour) Its really easy and its no wonder why its everyones favourite. Its also a method of making soap without using lye/sodium hydroxide so for those who are afraid to deal with lye, this is for you. Its not that these soap doesn't contain lye, but its already made into ready made base for you so that you don't have to personally deal with these lye. 



Problems in Ready made factory made soap base?
Everything is really great with soap base except that its mostly made in factory and you cant really control the ingredients in it. Therefore, when it comes to 'natural' soapbase, many do not fit into this category due to the addition of alcohol, sodium laureate sulphate (sls), propylene glycol and many other additives. Some also contains animal derived glycerin which is not suitable for vegan like myself and for the muslims, sometimes we are not even sure if its halal (the source of glycerin) 

However fret not because lately due to this experimental nature of mine, I've decided to venture into making my own soap base so that i can control the ingredients i put in and most importantly i wanted it to be of vegetarian source, with the least amount of synthetic ingredients/chemicals in it. Also i was really tired of the basic boring soapbases thats available (mostly derived from palm) and i wanted to put variation to it (so far I've made coconut, palm, olive based, three butter (Shea,cocoa and mango ) base, aloe vera juice base, goats milk base, yogurt base, baby skin 100% olive base, coconut milk base and honey base.)

Experiment Phase:

Below are some of the snapshot of the trial phase. It took us a month for me and my team to come up with the most perfect formula and tada.. We finally got it!

Sample 1-3 (check out sample 2 without glycerin)

Sample 4-11

Soaplab's Handmade Natural Soap Base vs Factory Made Soap Base

Now the only problem is, i really love the effect of glycerin on the skin so i had generously put a lot of them (alternative to clear soap was alcohol which i didn't want to use in our handmade base because its very drying and not suitable for sensitive skin). And this is what we got:

Glycerin Sweat

Our handmade 100% Olive Oil Soap Base for babies

The soap will sweat when its left in the open!

Now why does this happen? 

Glycerin is a well known humectant, where it loves to attract water from the surrounding. When its stuck on ur skin, it will continuously moisturise your skin by constantly hydrating it (thats why its an important addition into creams and moisturisers). Due to this, the soap base that contains glycerin will also constantly attract water from the surrounding causing it to have a sweat-like effect. Its not spoilt or anything like that. Its just 'moisturising' the soap:) 

I tried to reduce the glycerin content in the soap but it looks like the lesser glycerin i put, the less clearer the soap gets (view above picture sample 2). My only other alternative was to put alcohol if i didn't put in the glycerin and I'm totally against putting it in. So i guess ill just have to live with this sweating problem:( 

How to prevent sweating?

There are many methods to stop the sweating though. Some of the usual ones are:

1) cling wrap your soap after its harden to reduce the glycerin from pulling the water from air.

2) put the soap in covered soap container when in use in the bathroom

3) add in table salt to reduce the glycerin effect (be careful as this can be drying as well)

4) basically keep it in less airy humid area. 

Are the current suppliers really providing glycerin soap base?

So now you ask, what about the current glycerin soap base that you are getting from your suppliers? Shouldn't they be sweating too if glycerin is such a awesome humectant? Truthfully i have no idea. They probably have some kind of secret ingredients that i haven't figured out yet so will keep on trying till i get the solution. As for the current factory produced glycerin soap base i have, ill be trying to add in glycerin in it to view if it sweats or not. So check out our next experiment in the next post! 

Untuk mendapatkan SIJIL HALAL bagi bahan bahan didalam soap base, sila email ke: soaplabmalaysia@gmail.com     

P/S: to purchase our handmade soap base, click here