# Labeling Question



## jessicascandles (Mar 12, 2013)

Hello everyone. I'm new here and this is my first post here. I have just started making cp soap three days ago. I have been doing research and watching videos for months, so I am so very excited to start experimenting. It's becoming an obsession. 

Anyway, I have a quick question about labeling. As a beginner, I just have some basic ingredients to start with so I get to know the process before I get more expensive ingredients. One of my first recipes I have tried uses crisco. My question would be, if I choose to sell this down the road, how would I label it. 

My recipe is as such:
Crisco 7oz
Olive Oil 4.5oz
Coconut Oil 4.5oz
Water 6.1oz
Lye 2.3oz
Castor Oil 0.5oz
Fragrance 0.5oz

I know that it would be along the lines of:
(Crisco?), Water, Olive Oil (Olea Europaea), Coconut Oil (Cocos Nucifera), Sodium Hydroxide, Castor Oil (Ricinus Communis), Fragrance

Any tips or help would be much appreciated! :-D


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## Shannon_m (Mar 12, 2013)

I would list the ingredients listed on the Crisco packaging. Fully hydrogenated palm and soybean oils etc etc.


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## Seifenblasen (Mar 12, 2013)

Agree with Shannon.  I don't eat/use Crisco and have no idea what it contains.  By listing the ingredients people have a better idea what the soap is made of (and possibly avoid any allergens).  

I don't know about others, but personally seeing Crisco as the first ingredient listed does not have a lot of label appeal.  If you are eventually going to sell, it is probably more economical to just buy palm, soy, etc. oils in bulk instead of using Crisco anyway.


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## VanessaP (Mar 12, 2013)

Crisco, even with palm oil in it, can cause a very soft bar of soap. I do advise that you buy single oils. In the long run, as you decide what you like and don't like, you will save a lot of money buying that oil in bulk.

That being said, in the first spot, you need to list every single item that is on the ingredients list for the Crisco before you go on with the water, olive oil, coconut oil, etc.


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## melstan775 (Mar 12, 2013)

I Would list crisco just as vegetable shortening. Labeling laws require you list things in the order of how much they appear. You dont know how much of what is in crisco, so just shortening should do it I think.


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## VanessaP (Mar 12, 2013)

So, Mel, what do you do if someone sees Vegetable Shortening, doesn't know Palm is in it and buys it and has an allergic reaction? Because that is not following labeling law, the soaper is legally responsible for it. Everything on the Crisco label has to go on the soap label in order. Label like they do with junk food. When you see Milk Chocolate on the label, all the ingredients are listed in parentheses. Milk Chocolate (cocoa powder, sugar, milk, etc)

(Palm oil, soybean oil, BHT, etc, other Crisco ingredients here), Water, Olive oil, coconut oil, etc..


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## jcandleattic (Mar 12, 2013)

melstan775 said:


> I Would list crisco just as vegetable shortening. Labeling laws require you list things in the order of how much they appear. You dont know how much of what is in crisco, so just shortening should do it I think.



No, not necessarily the case. Because there IS an ingredients list on Crisco, that information in the order it is on the label of the Crisco would need to be listed as the first ingredients, as Vanessa pointed out, and then the subsequent following ingredients of your soap recipe. You could list it something like this 'Vegetable Shortening (all ingredients in order of how they are on the label in parenthesis, separated by a comma), then the next ingredient in your soap"
Only with actual ingredients, not the verbiage I used as an example.


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## Seifenblasen (Mar 12, 2013)

melstan775 said:


> I Would list crisco just as vegetable shortening. Labeling laws require you list things in the order of how much they appear. You dont know how much of what is in crisco, so just shortening should do it I think.



I believe the way to handle this is:

Vegetable shortening (_hydrogenated palm, soy, etc._), olive oil, coconut oil, ...

With the italics being Crisco's ingredients list, copied right from its label.


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## new12soap (Mar 12, 2013)

There are also some shortenings that contain animal fats, which a lot of vegans and vegetarians would find objectionable. List. The. Ingredients.  You don't see the label on a cake saying (Cake mix, eggs, oil, water).

As an aside, jessicascandles I think you may be getting just a wee bit ahead of yourself. I applaud you for wanting to learn the labeling issue correctly from the start, but most soapers recommend that you not even consider selling until you have been soaping at least one year. Believe me when I tell you that what you learn in that year will make you look back and go "Ohmygosh I cannot believe I even considered selling then!".  You may very well find, as you continue making soap, that you do not care for crisco in your soap. Or you may find that out in a few days when your soap turns a weird pinkish color as crisco can do. I would also recommend making slightly larger batches, usually 2lbs of oils. With smaller batches the margin for the slightest error is so much smaller, you are within a tenth of an ounce of lye between adequate superfatting and lye heavy.


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## jessicascandles (Mar 12, 2013)

I would like to thank everyone for their input. It has been very helpful. 

I do not know if I will be selling this soap down the road as there are so many other recipes that I am wanting to try. However, I believe in being ready so I just wanted to know so I can be prepared. It could be that I do not like this recipe as much. 

Does anyone know of a good recipe with olive oil, soybean oil, and coconut oil being the main oils?


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## Lindy (Mar 12, 2013)

If you wanted to label properly using INCI your label would look like this:

Ingredients:  Sodium Palmate (&) sodium cocoyl hydrolyzed soy protein;  Sodium Olivate; Aqua; Sodium Cocoate; Sodium Castorate, Parfum.  This equals (Crisco?), Water, Olive Oil (Olea Europaea), Coconut Oil (Cocos  Nucifera), Sodium Hydroxide, Castor Oil (Ricinus Communis), Fragrance.  Although water (aqua) is way at the top, it evaporates out so you would move it's position down.  Also when you use INCI you are accounting for the lye in the Sodium *** since lye is not present in the finished product, but has turned the oils into Oil & Glycerin.


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## VanessaP (Mar 12, 2013)

Soybean is one of those oils that in large quantities tends to get DOS. Try using it at about 15% of your total oils. That's the max I usually see people use soybean (I don't use it). 25% coconut, and then 60% olive oil. Yes, its a little heavy on the OO so maybe a full 6-8 weeks to cure, but superfat that puppy at 7-8% and I think it would be pretty good.


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## Lindy (Mar 12, 2013)

* Sigh* Poor olive oil gets such a tough rap. Unless you are making Castille (100% Olive Oil) a 3 - 4 week cure is all you need.  Olive oil makes a very hard bar of soap.  The reason they call for such a long cure on Castille is that you want it not be as slimy and the longer you cure it the nicer it becomes.  That actually holds true for any soap you make, the longer the cure, the nicer the later.  Put a couple aside and try them in 3, 6 & 12 months.


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## VanessaP (Mar 12, 2013)

True, olive does get smacked down a lot LOL But I don't know if she gels or not, so 6 weeks could be necessary. I like to do 6-8 weeks if I don't gel my CP, no matter if I used 0% olive or 75% olive.. Luckily, I prefer to do HP most of the time, but I even give my HP 3-4 weeks curing. So, to each their own


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## Mildreds.naturals (Mar 13, 2013)

jessicascandles said:


> Hello everyone. I'm new here and this is my first post here. I have just started making cp soap three days ago. I have been doing research and watching videos for months, so I am so very excited to start experimenting. It's becoming an obsession.
> 
> Anyway, I have a quick question about labeling. As a beginner, I just have some basic ingredients to start with so I get to know the process before I get more expensive ingredients. One of my first recipes I have tried uses crisco. My question would be, if I choose to sell this down the road, how would I label it.
> 
> ...



Crisco is also a brand name, which I don't think you can use without permission.  Just list the ingredients of the crisco you used.  

Not to highjack your thread, but I also have a question regarding labeling.  It's most common to list ingredients from highest to lowest, right? I'm a little thrown of by	 the Dr. Bronner's brand lists the ingredients in this order:
Water, coconut oil, KOH and THEN olive oil, lavandin extract, hemp oil, jojoba oil, lavander extract, citric acid and tocopherol.

I don't understand their labeling. this says that the ingredient makeup has more KOH than Olive oil. I know the citric acid and tocopherol are in VERY tiny amounts compared to the rest of the ingredients. But are they saying that this soap is mostly coconut? It bubbles nicely but isn't super drying like I would guess it woudl be if it had say 51% coconut and 49% olive. What do you think?



This is how I would label it:

Saponified vegetable oil /w retained gylcerin (Hydrogenated palm & soybean oils, olive oil and coconut oil), distilled water, Castor oil, Essentail oil of (name) for fragrance

If you put "fragrance" people will think they are synthetic, so if they are, please continue to use "fragrance" but if you want to promote a more natural sounding product list the actual essential oils that are used. Also, Lye is not necessarily needed to be named since it is not an ingredient. Hydrochloric acid and Sodium Hydroxide together make table salt. but you don't see that listed on a can of epsom salt 

If you get too scientific and start listing items with their chemical name you may make the product sound too complex or people will think it's not natural. And I may be mistaken but I think the methodology you were refering to in the second part was more along the lines of:

Sodium palmate, sodium cocoate, glycerol, H2O, etc....


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## VanessaP (Mar 13, 2013)

For a 1lb batch of oils, I used 80% olive oil and 20% cocoa butter. When I do the calculations on the SBM calculator for a 2% superfat, I get the exact same amount of KOH as I do cocoa butter. Set that to -10, and it comes out 0.4oz more KOH which is 22.5%. The jojoba and hemp oil are most likely added superfat after the dilution process due to the price of those oils.


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## Lindy (Mar 13, 2013)

Reading Dr. Bronnor's then yes I think Coconut is the main oil in the soap and that there is more KOH than Olive Oil.  However it is completely possible.

In the USA you can pretty much label it any way you want and not be wrong.  I think you are the only country that can get away with that.  As far as I know the rest of us must use INCI.  Of course I could be wrong as to whether other countries can label the same as the US..... :???:


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## whitetulips (Mar 17, 2013)

What is INCI?


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## gratia (Mar 17, 2013)

International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients. INCI.  Basically it is the scientific? name of something.


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## Lindy (Mar 17, 2013)

It is the internationally agreed upon language used when referring to cosmetic ingredients.  Some is scientific, some are botanical names and others are their own particular language.  The book is really, really expensive!


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## Mommysoaper (Mar 17, 2013)

If you're really serious about wanting to sell soap in the future and want to learn about correct labeling, read _Soap and Cosmetic Labeling How to Follow the Rules and Regs in Plain English_ by Marie Gale.  There is a chapter in the book specifically geared toward labeling soaps correctly.  I found it very helpful.  Also, research what your state requires for labeling laws since, amazingly, some states rules and regs may add to federal laws as to what is required on your soaps.  Have fun soaping and definitely learn all you can before selling.  Good luck!


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## Lindy (Mar 17, 2013)

Although I know you are not in Canada for those who are Canadian and following this thread, here is the link to labeling in Canada http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/pubs/indust/cosmetics-cosmetiques/index-eng.php


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