A Real
Soap Story
The
tale of how Soulful Blends began
Something
just felt so right about exploring life outside the ‘mamahood’ once the twins
turned two and a half. I was in Australia at the time, visiting my family when
all these ideas about Soulful Blends starting to swim around in my head! Nick,
myself and the girls had been through so much change in the past two years both
with moving to the middle east, and radically adjusting our lifestyle so the
idea of starting something new again
was almost too much!
While
visiting my sister (the very talented Lanie Lane) and her equally talented beau,
Jez Mead, at their cottage in beautiful country Victoria, ideas and concepts
started to become all that more real. One night over good food, wine and a bit
of singing around the fire, I poured my heart out about my passion for an all
natural approach to living well. Jez wrote it all down. I still have that piece
of torn cardboard with his notes and doodles hanging in our ‘lab’ (more about
that later). I wonder if Lanie and Jez even realize the relevance and
importance of that night– well I guess they do now! A little switch of
motivation for something I believed in turned on that night, and its been
keeping me going ever since!
With
that realized, in conjunction with our existing health kick well and truly
established, we figured it was time to start experimenting with natural
alternatives to home and body products. Once we returned home to the UAE that
summer, we hit the books to find out everything we could about soap.
Ever
looked at the ingredient list on store bought cosmetics and soaps…? Yeah, I can’t
pronounce most of them either…. As it happens, I’m married to a scientist who
has come in pretty handy for translations! Needless to say, as we move toward a
less toxic lifestyle, soap as we knew it had to go. In its place, castile soap.
But even then, we found that some shop bought castile soaps contained some
nasty ingredients. Not to be disheartened, we took on the challenge to make our
own.
Okay,
so maybe it’s because I’m not the scientist in the family that I experience it
this way, but making liquid castile soap has been by far the most challenging and
complex thing we’ve made so far. Here’s my crash course on how soap is made. The
short and simple list of ingredients on our bottle is as follows: “Saponified
extra virgin olive oil, Pure Essential Oils & Sea Salt”. Saponification is a term used to explain the
reaction between an oil and an alkali (so in this case, lye and extra virgin
olive oil). While an alkali is used to create saponification, none of it
remains in the final product. The final product is neutral (for soaps) with a pH
reading ranging from 9.5 – 10.5. A little secret for all the Dove users out
there; you know their advert that tells you their product is PH ‘5.5’ as a
selling point… well that stuff isn’t soap. It’s a synthetic detergent! True
natural soap will have a PH reading ranging from 9.5-10.5. I’ve discovered that
most of the ‘soap’ out there is in fact synthetic detergent based solvents. I
know, its so disheartening when you find this stuff out, because it really
makes you question what else out there isn’t what it appears to be on the
outside.
So,
our eyes have been well and truly opened here at Soulful Blends and we’re
diving in headfirst with new and exciting projects. When it comes to what we
put in and on our body we need to know what it is, and if we can make it more
naturally. We’re making it our mission to find out, and we love the journey so
far!
You can find us on Facebook here.
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