which soap process is this?

[jayte]

Hello all,

I've been presented with an ingredients listing and I wanted to find out what soap making process is used, can I seek your opinion? Thank you! Below is ingredients list:

Sodium Palmate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Aqua, Glycerin, EO (various EOs), Sodium Chloride, Shea Butter, Sweet Almond, Citric Acid, Tetrasodium EDTA, Etidronic Acid, Linalool, Citronellol, Geraniol, Limonene.

I was pretty sure from the look of the soap and ingredients list that this is commercially made but was told this is CP. I went online to search and checked out the forums and I am learning that people do add glycerin and EDTA to CP soaps.

Is this the product of some large scale commercial CP soap making?

Thank you in advance!

update:

I just came across a post by Kagey in Oct 2021 here. Can large scale commercial soap production soaps be considered CP?

 

[MelissaG]

There is alot of extra stuff in that list than whats needed. Sodium Palmate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Tetrasodium EDTA, Etidronic Acid, Linalool, Citronellol, Geraniol, Limonene... just why? This is the kind of thing that we try to avoid as soapers. That looks commercial made to me. There is absolutely no reason to add glycerin and EDTA to cold process soap.

 

[jayte]

There is alot of extra stuff in that list than whats needed. Sodium Palmate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Tetrasodium EDTA, Etidronic Acid, Linalool, Citronellol, Geraniol, Limonene... just why? This is the kind of thing that we try to avoid as soapers. That looks commercial made to me. There is absolutely no reason to add glycerin and EDTA to cold process soap.

Thank you Melissa for your repy! Absolutely, I agree with you.

 

[artemis]

This is not "extra stuff." This is just a list of ingredients after saponification. Sodium palmate just means they used palm oil. Sodium palm kernelate means palm kernel oil. If you used those oils, that's what would be in your soap, too. When you use olive oil you end up with sodium oliveate, coconut is sodium cocoate and so on. Cotronellol and geraniol etc look like components of the essential oils that were used. Glycerin is listed because it is also there as a result of it making soap.

I recommend doing a quick search on the forum for each of these items and see what their "everyday" names are. There is also a lot of information on labeling, where you can see that some people list the ingredients as what they were before saponification vs what they are after.

 

[DeeAnna]

I agree with Artemis -- this is just a basic soap made from palm oil and palm kernel oil superfatted with shea and sweet almond oil. Sound like a soap we'd make, right? Only difference is this ingredients list is written in INCI format which is required outside the US and is an acceptable alternative within the US. So the manufacturer most likely sells this outside the US as well as within.

I'm going to look at the other ingredients in more detail --

Glycerin is a normal ingredient in soap after the saponification process, so it's perfectly natural thing to see in an INCI ingredients list. Sodium Chloride is table salt, which adds hardness to the soap. Handcraft soap makers use table salt too.

Tetrasodium EDTA, is a chelator. I use it in all of my handmade soap to prevent rancidity (aka DOS) and to combat soap scum from hard water minerals. Arguably there are other more ecologically-friendly chelators out there such as sodium citrate or sodium gluconate, but I'm not going to throw out my EDTA just because I'm now more enlightened about chelators than I was when I bought the EDTA. It's more responsible to use it in tiny amounts in my soap than put it all into the trash.

Citric acid, when it reacts with lye, becomes a chelator. It's added to soap for that reason and also to ensure there is no free lye present in the soap. Handcraft soap makers use it all the time.

Etidronic Acid is another chelator that's less common in the handcraft soap world but it gets good marks for human and environmental safety.

The last four ingredients are the fragrance. If you have Essential Oil Safety by Tisserand and Young, you'll learn these four chemicals are very common in essential oils and I know they're very common in fragrance ois as well. These chemicals might legally be listed simply as "fragrance" so I give the manufacturer credit for being more transparent about the fragrance chemicals used in this soap than they strictly need to be.

So I could say the only unfamiliar ingredient in this soap is the etidronic acid. All the other ingredients are often found in handcrafted soap and we've discussed them all many times here on SMF.

***

To answer the OP's other questions -- it's probably a commercially made soap, not hand crafted.

As to how it's made, assuming it's a commercial soap -- Many commercial soaps aren't made with hot process or cold process methods as we do them. They're either made with what's called a "boiled" process or, more likely, some type of continuous saponification process.

There's no real way for a handcraft soap maker to replicate the continuous process. We can do a boiled process, but it's tedious -- HP is closest to the boiled process.

 

[Carly B]

The only company I've ever seen actually list Linalool is Lush or Body shop. Not that I go around reading soap lables........

 

[DeeAnna]

Linalool is one of the main chemicals in lavender essential oil -- as much as 50% of the EO. I'm sure it's in other EOs as well, just can't dredge other examples out of my memory.

 

[cmzaha]

There is alot of extra stuff in that list than whats needed. Sodium Palmate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Tetrasodium EDTA, Etidronic Acid, Linalool, Citronellol, Geraniol, Limonene... just why? This is the kind of thing that we try to avoid as soapers. That looks commercial made to me. There is absolutely no reason to add glycerin and EDTA to cold process soap.

I use EDTA in all my soaps with Sodium Gluconate. As DeeAnna mentioned above, Linalool, Citronellol, Geraniol, and Limonene are all constituents of Essential Oils.

 

[Carly B]

I use EDTA in all my soaps with Sodium Gluconate. As DeeAnna mentioned above, Linalool, Citronellol, Geraniol, and Limonene are all constituents of Essential Oils.

Understood. But most soaps I've seen don't break down the components of EO's. They say "fragrance" or "essential oil" and leave it at that. Lush and Body Shop are the only labels I can remember seeing it. That's not to say it's not listed, I just don't remember.

 

[artemis]

Understood. But most soaps I've seen don't break down the components of EO's. They say "fragrance" or "essential oil" and leave it at that. Lush and Body Shop are the only labels I can remember seeing it. That's not to say it's not listed, I just don't remember.

I think I read somewhere here that it is done to call attention to components of EO or FO that might be allergens.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Sodium Palmate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Aqua, Glycerin, EO (various EOs), Sodium Chloride, Shea Butter, Sweet Almond, Citric Acid, Tetrasodium EDTA, Etidronic Acid, Linalool, Citronellol, Geraniol, Limonene.

@jayte - Good question. Keep reading soap labels.
@DeeAnna - Spot on! (As always)

To me, this looks like a handcrafted soap, CP or HP, made by @IrishLass (who is fond of chelators) and labeled by @DeeAnna who created a "proper" label for the overseas customers.

As for a bar made with PKO + Palm Oil -- try it. You'll like it! A lot of Triple Milled French soaps are like that. They have a rather elegant feel to me when you first pick them up as well as lathering up.

 

[jayte]

Hi everyone, thank you very much for taking the time to reply!!

I get what @MelissaG and @artemis are saying and why they say that. I didn't realise glycerin would also be listed if it was there as a result of the process, now I know! I am familiar with the name of oils and EO components but I've always made rather basic soap with just oil and lye and EO, without EDTA. This is new to me for CP soaps and I'll go find out more!

Thank you DeeAnna for your explanation and reply to my question! This is the first time I am learning about this "boiled" and continuous saponification process. Thank you for sharing!

I think I read somewhere here that it is done to call attention to components of EO or FO that might be allergens.

Ah I see! Thank you artemis!

As for a bar made with PKO + Palm Oil -- try it. You'll like it! A lot of Triple Milled French soaps are like that. They have a rather elegant feel to me when you first pick them up as well as lathering up.

Ok! Thank you @Zany_in_CO

 

[Zany_in_CO]

@jayte You're welcome!