Here at The Good Soap our products are all 100% natural
But what does that mean? And is it better?
When creating skincare, and I'll include soap in that catagory, legally there is no definition of what constitutes 'Natural' ingredients, there are no regulations on using this term as far as cosmetics, or ingredients contained within. In certain circumstances the term 'Natural' is used quite loosely. Legally of course, all ingredients in a product must be listed on the label, but often these lists are confusing for the customer. The term Chemical Free is also used frequently, and we all know that everything is 'chemical', we prefer to use the term Artificial Chemical Free when it comes to describing our products - again there are no legal definitions of this in cosmetics.
When creating products to sell, by law each product needs to hold a Cosmetic Product Safety Report, a CPSR certificate. These certificates show that the product is safe for use, that the ingredients are used in safe quantities for skin and that the packaging is suitable for that product. The purpose of this certificate is safety, and not to define what is natural or not.
At The Good Soap we are clear and consistent about every ingredient included in our products - you'll find the ingredients listed underneath each product on our website both in INCI, International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredient, internationally recognised names to identify cosmetic ingredients, and also in English. We only ever use ingredients produced in nature such as plant oils, nuts, seeds, milk, beeswax, salt etc. We use lye in our soap bars, we can't produce soap without it, and this is also a natural ingredient, this disappears during the process of saponification, it's quite magic! We have a blog post about soapmaking if you are interested in reading it.
So, are natural products better?
Firstly it is a myth to say that all natural skincare products are safe and suitable for everyone, even natural ingredients can cause a reaction in some people. There are 26 recognised 'natural allegens' which are commonly defined as 'any substance, often a protien, that induces and allergy'. Once again for transparency and safety we list any of the naturally occuring allergens under the products on our website where included in the ingredients. Reactions to natural products are extremely rare and during our almost 6 years making our products we have not had one report of an allergic reaction, only the occasional sensitivity in a few people to bicarbonate of soda in our deodorant bars (we make a bicarb free version for this purpose). We have a collection on our website of products that don't contain essential oils for any customers who may be scent sensitive or for anyone who does not like essential oils in their products.
The natural ingredients that we use in our products have not been tested on animals and this is extremely important for us as a company, no animal testing ever, either of our products, or of ingredients used to make our products.
Our skin is our largest organ and absorbs 60-70% of anything we put on it, taking anything absorbed directly into our bloodstream and therefore through our organs too. A great example of the effectiveness of skin absorbtion would be skin applied HRT treatments or other topical medications, which are taken directly into the bloodstream after being applied to the skin.
So we have a choice to make, we can control what we put onto our skin, therefore what is absorbed into our system. Of course, all skincare treatments that include 'artificial chemicals' are certified as safe, so this post is not to say that they are not, but it is a choice we make as to how much of these chemicals we want in or system. Just like processed foods, whole foods are much better for our system, anything natural that is absorbed by our skin puts less stress on our organs when it comes to excretion and extra work that our organs must do.
So in summary we can choose what we put on our skin, natural products are less likely to cause an allergic reaction, and natural products over time are probably better for our system as a whole over time. Dawn x
email: dawn@the-good-soap.co.uk
www.the-good-soap.co.uk