Bar soap

[mars]

I thought I understood the difference between real bar soap and the commercial cheap detergent ones, but apparently I don't.

While looking online I noticed that Dial, Ivory, and Lever 2000 had all the components of what I thought constituted real soap: a fat, the glycerine byproduct (retained I assume), and some form of lye. I expected to find SLS or some other detergent and the glycerine removed.

Are these true soaps?

What am I misssing here?

 

[timsclips]

The examples you have listed are true soaps. There may be additional additives in each that take them away from the "natural" soap you may be looking for.

Compare these to Zest, not a soap at all and they are proud of it.

 

[redrako]

Commercial soap is to artisan soap what Wonderbread is to whole grain artisan bakery bread: they're both bread, but one is made with better ingredients. Just like white flour has all the good stuff removed, commercial soap has its natural glycerin removed (because it can be sold as a valuable by-product). A little bit is added back in but it's never as much as would have been in there naturally. Artisan soapmakers are using food grade oils and tallow, not renderings from animals that didn't make the grade in the slaughterhouses. And artisan soaps are typically where you will find more generous quantities of specialty oils like shea butter.

Nice summary. As a young man, I simply purchased the cheapest soap on the shelf at the supermarket. As I got older, I realized that better soaps left my skin better hydrated and as a bonus were probably better for the environment too.

 

[mars]

Thanks all.