How Natural Soap Is Made: A Complete Guide to Real, Traditional Soapmaking

Natural soap has made a huge comeback in recent years—and for good reason. People are increasingly seeking products that are gentle on the skin, environmentally responsible, and crafted with intention. But what exactly is natural soap, and how is it made?

Whether you're a curious customer or a budding soap-maker, this guide walks you through the essentials of real soapmaking and the ingredients required to create true, authentic soap.( not cleansing bar, not detergents, beauty bars or shampoo bars).

🧼 What Makes Soap… Soap?

At its core, soap is a salt, the result of a chemical reaction called saponification. This reaction occurs when lipids ( oils/fats /waxes) combine with an alkali (a strong base). When these two meet, they transform into something entirely new: soap and glycerin.

To legally and chemically be considered soap, a product must contain:

• Lipids (plant-based or animal-based)

• An alkali (sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, and some mild alkaline salts such as sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate and borax how ever these will affect pH- they aren't strong enough to create traditional soap on their own, but are used in laundry detergents or as buffers-

• Liquid (to dissolve the alkali)

Anything and Everything else is optional—scents, colors, botanicals, clays, etc , all of it makes the result beautiful and in my opinion they are essential, but yes they all are optional.

🌿 The Essential Ingredients of Natural Soap

1. Lipids (Oils and Butters)

These are the heart of your soap. Each oil brings its own properties:

Lipids	Benefits in Soap
Olive oil, Canola oil	Gentle, moisturizing, creates a mild lather
Coconut oil, palm oil	Cleansing, bubbly lather
Mango , Shea butter	Creamy, conditioning
Avocado oil, rose seed oil	Nourishing, rich in vitamins
Castor oil, jojoba (wax)	Boosts lather and creaminess
Animal fats	Hardness, creaminess

Natural soap-makers often blend several oils to create a balanced bar with the right hardness, lather, and skin feel .

2. The Alkali

This is the ingredient that scares people—but it shouldn’t. When used correctly, the alkali is completely "consumed" during saponification and does not remain in the finished soap if properly made. The most used are:

• Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) → used for solid bar soap

• Potassium hydroxide (KOH) → used for liquid soap

Without lye, there is no soap. Products made without lye are not soap—they’re detergents or melt‑and‑pour bases (which were ALREADY saponified for you by someone else).

3. Liquid

Lye must be dissolved in a liquid before mixing with oils. Common choices include:

• water

• Milk (animal or vege, etc.)

• Tea or coffee

• juice

• distilles

Each liquid can subtly influence the color, scent, or skin feel of the final bar. and some will un-saponified your hard-soap-bar.

🔬 How Natural Soap Is Made: Step-by-Step

1. Preparing the Lipids

lipids are weighed precisely, then gently melted or warmed to the right temperature.

2. dissolving the alkali Solution

Alkali is carefully dissolved into the chosen liquid. This mixture heats up naturally and must cool before combining with the lipids.

3. Bringing it Together

When both mixtures reach compatible temperatures, they are blended until they reach “trace”—a pudding-like consistency which mean they are emulsify.

4. Adding Extras (Optional but Fun!)

At this stage, soap-makers can add:

• Essential oils or scents

• Clays or exfoliants

• Colorants, etc

This is where creativity shines.

Ness, workshop demostration/ soap making comercial center Saguenay 65 participants 2024, / Ness, atelier de démonstration/ fabrication de savon, centre commercial de Saguenay, 65 participants, 2024

5. Pouring and Curing

The soap batter is poured into molds and left to harden for 24–48 hours . After unmolding, the bars cure for 4 weeks to 5 months.

Liquid evaporates during curing (weeks), this creating a harder, longer-lasting bar, it concentrates the soap and affects the feel, but the pH itself mellows a bit as the soap structure changes and free alkali reacts. The curing process forms tiny soap crystals, making the soap gentler and less drying, even if the pH only drops slightly. 

🌱 Why Choose Natural Soap?

Natural soap retains glycerin and most sopers ADD it to their recipies, a humectant that attracts moisture to the skin in a humid environment. Commercial soaps often remove glycerin to sell it separately, leaving their bars harsher and more drying.

Handcrafted natural soap is:

• Biodegradable

• Free from synthetic detergents

• Gentle on sensitive skin

• Rich in natural glycerin

• Made in small batches with care

It’s skincare the way nature intended.

✨ Final Thoughts

Natural soapmaking is both an art and a science. NOT all natural soaps are the same ,years of research, years of trial and error does not compare to a 5 min video in a bloggers channel. And Melt and pour bases are finished soap, made with saponified oils.

however the base is the same just three essential ingredients— lipid, alkali , and liquid—you can create a bar that is gentle, effective, and beautifully unique. Everything else is a creative bonus and a knowledge gem that adds effectiveness, personality, and purpose to each bar.

PLease do some research next time you read "Natural soap made with out chemicals", because you need water or a liquid to make soap and guess what? Yes, water is a chemical; it's a compound with a specific composition (H₂O) made of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Granted it evaporates leaving almost nothing left in the final product, but it was still about 50% of the ingredients in the making process.

Really the thing to remember is that NATURAL soap is free from hazardous/harmful-chemical. And that not all is the same. if you have any questions or comments please let me know.

Thank you and stay clean!!