You may be thinking that buying soap is fun for presents, but for everyday washing, Dial is just fine. (Or Bath and body works, Ivory, etc...). I’m not going to try to debunk the ideas around mass produced soaps, I’m just going to explain the benefits of soap made in the traditional manner.
Soap, in essence, is a chemistry experiment. By adding fats to lye(sodium hydroxide), you get a chemical reaction and something new is made. That something new isn’t just soap. It is soap plus glycerin.
Yup, that stuff.
Glycerin is found in all sorts of bath and beauty products, but did you know that soap made with lye creates it! Getting glycerin out of homemade soap is difficult, it involves distilling(yup, like whiskey) and collecting the gases and is just really difficult and time consuming.
Most mass produced soaps use synthetic glycerin. Yup. They extract the natural glycerin that is created when making soap and use it in lotions and other bath products. Then, they synthetically produce glycerin to add back into the soap. So the “soap” you are using is kind of like Frankenstein’s monster. That’s a stretch, but you get the idea. Large companies want that natural glycerin as its more readily absorbed by your skin.
Enter homemade soap. Glycerin is the by-product of lye soap. It is wonderful for your skin, making it supple and hydrating it.
That’s it! So if you’ve ever wondered why your skin feels better when using homemade soap- it’s glycerin.