Why should you use our soaps?
We have made a soap that doesn't dry our skin. We would like everyone to be as comfortable in their skin as we are.
We were itching, flaking and miserable. We tried everything. We couldn't find products that didn't make it worse. Reading the label only brought more questions and confusion, because we couldn't make sense of the complicated chemical names. Our quest brought us to the idea of making soap for ourselves.
We've tried many different formulations and learned much about the properties of various ingredients. Let us share a bit of what we learned.
Why is Britewerkz Handmade soap better for your skin?
...no dyes, no detergents, no surfactants, no phthalates!
Why is that so important?
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding phthalates in hygiene products and plastics. There is no controversy about our products and phthalates, because our soap contains no phthalates. We believe a lack of drama and controversy is good and calming for the soul. Most teen-agers would not agree. That's okay, we believe their skin will still like our soap.
And what's the thing about the dyes? Brian is sensitive to blue dyes in hygiene products. We believe he isn't the only person affected similarly. Dyes serve no purpose in skin care, so we elect not to use them. Neither do detergents and extra foaming agents and surfactants, so they got voted off the island too.
Lots of natural soaps use palm oil. We elect not to do that. While palm oil has some great qualities, and can be produced using sustainable methods, we have concerns about some places that clear valuable rain forests away, and drain natural peat bogs, to plant oil palm plantations. We can't force these places not to do that, but we choose not to use palm oil in our soap because they do.
What else have we done to have less impact on the environment? We prefer to use the least amount of packaging possible. Some is necessary to protect the product and provide our customer with important information about it, but we believe less is better whenever possible. We started out making hot process soap, but wanted to use less energy wherever possible, so we switched to cold processing. This has also reduced the amount of water we use in clean-up, and reduced the amount of soap wasted from adhesion to cooking utensils. Very little soap is washed away in our production process. We don't look at these things as "going green" as a matter of policy--they simply make sense. Waste not, want not.
Do you know where your soap comes from?
Years ago, when our grandmothers made soap, it started with hog butchering in the autumn. They rendered the fat by melting it, cooling it, skimming the useful part, and then rinsing it in cold water. They made lye by dripping rainwater through wood ashes. If they could float an egg in the resulting solution, it was strong enough to make soap, and often much stronger. The ability to accurately estimate how much lye to add to an amount of lard could make a woman’s soap a valued trading commodity. When everything was done without the modern conveniences that we take for granted, making soap was a chore, not an art form, and success meant that the soap was useful for removing dirt from both people and things, period.
Britewerkz Bubbles Soaps contain no animal fats, only the finest vegetable oils and butters…
These days, we have more ingredients to choose from and so much of the rendering work has been done when we buy raw materials. We can tailor our formulations to be more astringent or more conditioning, depending on what oils we choose. And the glycerin, a wonderful moisture attractant, stays in the soap. What hasn’t changed? We take our time, and let the soap cook or age slowly to make a better product for your skin and ours.
Our ability to accurately measure our ingredients and knowing the science of why soap forms under certain circumstances makes it possible for us to turn out mild and soothing soap today, time after time.
Soap forms when pure vegetable oils (in our case) or animal fats react with water and an alkali, for example caustic potash (potassium hydroxide), or caustic soda (sodium hydroxide, also known as "lye"), a process known as saponification.
Chemically speaking, the water, fat, and lye molecules, come apart and recombine into fatty-acid-salt (soap) molecules and moisture-attracting glycerin molecules. No lye is left over when the chemical reaction is complete. The reaction will continue in a batch of soap until there are: a) no more lye molecules; b) no more fat molecules; or c) no more water molecules.
There is more than one way to cause saponification to happen. One way is called 'hot process,' where the ingredients are mixed together and slowly heated through the chemical reaction until the mixture becomes a thick gel, which hardens as it cools. Another method is called 'cold process,' where the ingredients are mixed together, the reaction itself generates some heat, and the soap cools and hardens before it turns to gel and before saponification is complete. The reaction continues as the soap dries and hardens further, and the soap is ready to use in about 6 to 8 weeks. We use a combination of these methods: We mix our soap as for the cold process method, then insulate the molds to hold the heat generated by the chemical reaction. The mixture slowly goes through the saponification process until it turns to gel. We allow it to cool and harden over the course of about 24hours, then cut it into bars to further harden and cure completely over then next 3 weeks. We use 8% more oils than calculation shows are required by weight. This is known as “super-fatting”, and renders a luxuriant lather and an extremely gentle soap for your skin as well.
It isn’t practical, necessary or desirable to remove the glycerin from handmade soap. Commercial soap manufacturers do this and sell the glycerin for extra profit.
The artistry of scent…
And Why include scent at all?
Soap with a pleasant, uplifting scent makes bathing more enjoyable. A positive reaction to the sensations of bathing can set the emotional mood for the next several hours. We have scents that are energizing, calming, reminiscent of happy places, and scents that can heat up a romantic interlude. Our scents don't linger heavily on your skin like heavy perfumes can.
We have designed several scents which can only be found in Britewerkz Bubbles soaps. We scent many of our soaps with pure steam-distilled essential oils, and some are scented with fragrance oils. Our fragrance oils contain both natural and synthetic aromatic components, but do NOT contain toxic phthalates. We strive to use natural essential oils to scent our soaps whenever it is economically feasible to do so and still bring our customers the scents they request.
Britewerkz’s carefully selected blend of base oils give our soaps masses of rich, creamy lather naturally, from the innate characteristics of the base oils, not from additives, even in hard water. Because it doesn’t contain detergents, surfactants, foaming additives, dyes, preservatives, or toxic phthalates, Britewerkz Bubbles doesn’t rinse these things into the water supply when you bathe.
If you have any questions about Britewerkz Bubbles soap, please contact us at sales@britewerkz.com, or call 262-725-3459.
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Click here to look at Britewerkz soaps that will probably appeal most to men
Click here to look at Britewerkz soaps that will probably appeal most to women
