Why we love soap…

At this point we would like to make a declaration of love. To a relic of past times. One that is worth to go back to. The reliable piece of soap as we know it from our own grandparents has its reason for being. You ask yourself why? Quite simply:

Soap bars nestle wonderfully in the hands, lather first-class, are absolutely hygienic, clean much better than their liquid brothers and sisters and can do one thing especially well: coming without plastic! If these are not many good reasons to reach into the soap dish instead of the pump dispenser…

Soap bars: How does that work exactly?

When we talk about soaps – no matter if it’s hand, body, face or hair soaps, we mean exactly that. Namely the solid product that comes out when valuable oils are saponified with the help of lye. This can be achieved for example by adding baking soda in a so-called “cold stirring process”. This chemical process produces glycerine and salts. The result – the soap bar – is impressive because of its high cleaning and dirt-removing power.

Short digression: Hair soap bars and shampoo bars: Is there a difference?

If you look into zero waste haircare, you very quickly come across terms such as hair soap, but also shampoo bar or solid shampoo. But not everyone knows that two different things are shorn together here. Strictly speaking, shampoo bar is a term that is basically contradictory. This is because shampoos are all those hair cleansing products that develop their cleansing power with added surfactants. These are substances that also take over the task of cleaning agents such as detergents or rinsing agents and, depending on their composition, clean more gently or “aggressively”.

Solid shampoos or shampoo bars, which can be easily mistaken for hair soaps, are nothing more or less than the liquid version, just without the water.

Soap bars, on the other hand, are saponified fats, also known as surfactants in the narrower sense of the word, which are produced naturally by saponification. In addition, hair soap bars have a so-called over-fatting effect, which means they have a refatting effect so that the hair doesn’t dry out after washing. Depending on skin and hair type, you should choose a higher or lower residual fat content, higher for hair that tends to re-grease quickly.

Gotten curious and want to use the hair soap immediately? The best way to incorporate hair soap into your haircare routine is to have a look at our journal article on the topic “Hair cleansing soap – that’s how your switch turns out successfully“. There, we’ve collected a few tips and tricks for you which make the change a lot easier for you!

So why exactly do we love soap that much?

Enough about hair care – back to the original topic. We would like to make our personal declaration of love to the soap bar. Less on a poetic, more on an emotional level. Because we are convinced that it has received far too little attention so far. And yet there are several reasons to advocate for solid soap.

Firstly: Soap Bars, a Zero Waste lovestory!

As a manufacturer of certified natural cosmetics, we are of course interested in ensuring that all our care products are as natural and sustainable as possible and that they don’t contain artificial fragrances, preservatives or animal ingredients. They should be able to be used equally by anyone without side effects and should neither cause social nor ecological damage. And let’s be honest, what could be more obvious than getting your own small collection of soap bars.

Soap bars are THE zero-waste product par excellence. They can be sold, transported and eventually also used plastic-free. They are also incredibly economical – compared to liquid products, they take three to four times longer to use up. And do you know what is really wonderful? Thanks to their natural, purely vegetable composition, many soaps are even biodegradable.

Secondly: We love traditional manufacturing!

Soap bars can be easily produced in small quantities and are often characterised by the fact that they are still manufactures traditionally. Of course, you can argue that you can also find a lot of industrially produced soaps on supermarket shelfs, but hey, we don’t enthuse over them to that extent anyways 😉 Rather it is the attention to detail, the individual look and the special features – as in our case they even come with the face behind the production – which has captivated us. This is why all FAIR SQUARED soaps are stirred, cut and embossed by our colleague Mohamad (the face), who was born in Syria, and his small team. A real intercultural soap project 💚

Thirdly: It needs to be fair and ethical to do the trick!

Besides the traditional methods of boiling and embossing soaps, the Fairtrade idea also plays an important role here. As a manufacturer of cosmetics and care products made from Fairtrade oils, it is therefore only natural for us to also use these fair ingredients and long-term trading relationships in our soap production. Because only if fair wages are paid to the producers in the regions where our raw materials are grown will we all benefit. Fortunately, we know many cultivation partners personally through last years’ work and therefore are able to use for example valuable olive oil from ethical trade for our soap bars.

Do you now fully understand why we are so enchanted by the high art of soap? Have a closer look at our soap assortment and find the perfect ones for you!

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