Truly-Life Soap Recipe

From my very first batch of soap in 2008, I had been using the same Truly-Life soap recipe with four basic oil ingredients, olive, coconut, coconut butter, and vegetable shortening.  The soap recipe worked well and I got consistent results.  I didn’t have the need to use different recipes for various soaps.  They all moisturize at the same level and that worked for me.  However, in mid 2014 the Truly-Life bar soaps were rejected by Teaism because the vegetable shortening contained soy, and even organic soy wasn’t an option for them.  The only other vegetable shortening contained palm oil.  Palm oil doesn’t come from the U.S. and using U.S. ingredients is part of the Truly-Life business philosophy.  There are also problems with developing countries not harvesting sustainable palm, so it contributes to global environmental problems.

There are no soap recipes using only U.S. oils without using soy, which is one of the most controversial crops, genetically modified or not.  Creating a new recipe was my new mission.  After attempting several failed combinations, I started to corner Andy for help. As a chemical engineer, he was my best chance at resolving this problem.  When you’re a small business every mistake contributes to devastating consequences for your limited annual budget.  We would sit at night and discuss the latest batch, “should we increase the bubbly?”  Many soap calculations later, I was running out of inventory in late 2014, when we nailed it!  The new recipe was just olive oil and coconut oil.  The results were outstanding.  The lather and bubbles were the same as the original recipe, but the bars were hardening faster, which is a soap makers dream.  Andy saved the day.

Now we can move on to the next problem, extending our gardens into new locations.