Most people ask what is in the soap and is your soap one of the soaps that I can see as safe to use for me and my family. This tab is here to answer all of these questions and give a few soap facts along the way.
Each soap is created in small batches that do not exceed 1000g starting out. In each batch we have key ingredients which are:
Olive Oil
Unrefined Coconut Oil
Grapeseed Oil
Aloe Vera
Fragrance Oil
Lye Solution
Like most you might want to know why are you adding lye to your soap and is it safe to use with lye in it. All cold process soap is made with lye to breakdown the oils and give us the process of saponification. So no the lye is not present in your soap by the time you or your family receive it. Let me break it down more for you.
The key thing to understand is that lye is needed to make true soap, but the lye does not remain as lye in properly made and cured soap.
🧼 What does lye actually do?
Lye—usually sodium hydroxide (NaOH) for bar soap—is what starts a chemical reaction called saponification.
Think of it like this:
Oils + Lye → Soap + Glycerin
Your oils contain fats called triglycerides. When you combine them with a properly calculated amount of sodium hydroxide and water, the lye breaks those fats apart and chemically transforms them into soap molecules.
🔬 Why can't you just mix oils together?
If you combine olive oil, coconut oil, grapeseed oil, etc., you simply have an oil mixture. It won't have the cleansing properties or structure of soap.
The lye is essentially the ingredient that changes the oils into soap.
For example, in Suds Up Soap Comp’s recipes:
Olive oil + coconut oil + grapeseed oil + sodium hydroxide → soap
During saponification, the sodium hydroxide is consumed in the reaction. Once the recipe has been properly formulated and the soap has completed saponification, you're no longer dealing with the original corrosive lye.
🧪 What happens during curing?
After you pour your soap into molds and cut it, it still contains water and needs time to cure.
During curing:
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Remaining water evaporates.
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The soap becomes harder.
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The bar becomes milder and longer-lasting.
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The soap's crystalline structure continues developing.
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Properly formulated soap has completed the chemical reaction so there isn't free sodium hydroxide sitting in the finished bar.
That's why lye safety and accurate measurements are extremely important. You can't safely "eyeball" lye. The amount needs to be calculated based on the exact oils and their weights.
🧴 One important distinction
You may see products advertised as "lye-free soap."
Technically, if a product was made through traditional saponification, lye was involved somewhere in the process. Products marketed as "lye-free" are often referring to as melt-and-pour soap bases, which were already saponified before you purchased them.
So a great way to explain it is:
"Lye is what transforms our nourishing oils into true soap. Through the soap-making process called saponification, the lye reacts with the oils and is converted into soap and naturally occurring glycerin."
That's a much better explanation than simply saying "our soap contains lye."
This also means that we test each batch of soap to ensure that it has the correct pH balance and that the soap is not harmful to skin. Of course you should only use the soap for external uses, however this is just the breakdown to be transparent as possible.