Updates on Holiday orders & The Soaper's Segment

Holiday soaps are almost ready--they were born this week--and just simply need to be tested and then photographed before we can show them to you. Rest assured, you have a lot of fun to look forward to for your holiday ordering. I will have pictures and post descriptions early next week, and we will begin taking pre-orders next week with delivery to begin the week of November 20th. For now, I leave you with some creative reading:

The Soaper’s Segment
A place to air out some ideas and clear up misconceptions
Customer questions:
What is soap?
Soap is simply a material that results from a specific chemical reaction between an acid (in this case sodium hydroxide) and a base (the oils). There are actually six different, and sometimes very complicated, chemical reactions that will result in soap. The reaction that Prairie Soap House prefers to use is the one involving lye and water mixed with oils called the Cold Process.
Soap works because it is a surfactant, meaning that it creates an atmosphere on your skin (or whatever else you are washing) where the “stuff” stuck on your skin becomes slippery and more easily washes away in water.
I see that lye is an ingredient in your recipes. Isn’t lye bad for you?
Lye is the catalyst for a chemical reaction. Without getting into the chemistry, what PSH can assure you of, is that in our soaps, at the end of the reaction, and when you receive the soap, there will be no lye left in the soap. This is because the chemical reaction required to make soap actually changes the chemical structure of ALL of the ingredients—the oils are no longer just oils, the water is no longer just water, and the lye is no longer present—it is cancelled out by the process. What is more, all of Prairie Soap House’s soaps are “super-fatted soaps” meaning that there is an excess of fat required for a complete chemical reaction. Some would say that this excess oil will create more of a moisturizing bar, but legally we can’t claim this because of government regulations.
Are you all organic?
Prairie Soap House has a tremendous dedication to personal and corporate responsibility to sustainable living and the environment as well as natural health and well-being. We do not use an excess of packaging materials, and we order our raw ingredients from companies that also have a strong commitment to environmental responsibility. Additionally, we believe it is very important that no synthetic ingredients be included in any of our products, and if any ingredient of question is ever used, there will be a specific alert in the description of that soap. In order for a product to be called “organic” it has to be a large percentage of certified organic materials. For a company to claim their product is organic, many requirements must be met and several certification processes must be undertaken. For now, because we cannot at this time financially sustain the certification processes, we at this time are committed to letting you know which of our raw ingredients are organic or wild-crafted (taken from wild sources, i.e. forests, prairies and the like). We encourage you to read our ingredient lists and compare them with many of the products sitting on your bathroom counter. You will find that our products contain no chemicals (other than the lye which is gone from the soap after the chemical reactions occur) or artificial colorings and fragrances are contained within our products. Unless otherwise noted, our ingredients are 100% natural and pure and from environmentally conscious sources.
Why can’t you tell me the benefits of the ingredients in your products?
Prairie Soap House sells soaps. Soap is simply something that cleans. If we were to claim any further benefits than cleanliness, our product would no longer fall into the category of soap, and we would be in default of complying with government regulations in regards to cosmetics and drugs. Again, we encourage you to do your research on our ingredients and find out for yourself the large body of research available in regards to the possible benefits or drawbacks to any of our raw materials. Occassionally, for special items, we may point out the folkloric qualities of healing or various claims made of certain materials, but we are not allowed to concretely say that something DOES in fact moisturize, heal, prevent aging, etc, etc. For further information, you can always contact a qualified herbalist.