introduction The Beauty of Pure, Handmade Soap If you’ve picked up this book, there’s a good possibility that you’re consciously choosing to reduce synthetic ingredients in your life. Handmade soap lathers and cleanses just as well as commercial soap but doesn’t have harsh ingredients, and you can mix and match the ingredients to come up with a soap that is just right for you. For example, coconut oil is a great cleanser and produces good lather, but used at 100 percent, it can feel drying to some skin. To balance it out, you can combine it with a myriad of other oils that are gentler. Olive oil, for example, is commonly used because skin loves it and it creates a stable, conditioning bar. Avocado oil, sweet almond oil, and rice bran oil contain vitamins and skin-loving fatty acids, and they’re cost effective. Castor oil adds extra bubbles. Shea butter and cocoa butter have wonderful moisturizing properties. With homemade soaps, you control the additives. Ingredients such as coffee grounds and crushed walnut shells add gentle exfoliating power. Oatmeal can provide soothing relief for itchiness. Infused oils provide extra moisturizing and calming properties for difficult skin. Having a pharmacopoeia of custom-made natural soap ingredients means you can create the best product for your skin, using different formulas as needed. This book contains over 30 fully tested recipes for almost every skin type and occasion. Another reason to make your own soap is that it’s an environmentally sound practice. In the past few years, an entire population of soapmakers has picked up the hobby and even entered the business of soapmaking because they were concerned about a variety of issues, including the use of phosphates, which are linked to algae bloom in rivers and streams. Many people also wanted to use ingredients that had not been tested on animals and did not threaten natural resources. Even using all-natural ingredients can have an environmental impact to consider. For instance, more than half of the recipes in this book are made without palm oil for those who are concerned about the link between palm oil production and the declining ecosystem of orangutans. Orangutans have become the poster child for this issue because nearly 90 percent of their habitat has been destroyed by unsustainable logging in Sumatra and Borneo, placing them on the Endangered Species list. This mass deforestation also affects the habitats of Sumatran tigers, sun bears, clouded leopards, and proboscis monkeys. Making soap with or without palm oil is a personal choice; while it is possible to soap without palm oil, there is often a trade-off for bar hardness and lather. One option is to purchase certified sustainable palm oil to use in your soapmaking (see What Is Sustainable Palm Oil?). Knowing the source of your ingredients allows you to make products exactly the way you want them, and make them in good conscience.