Soap Bases

What is the basis for soap?

Home soap making has long turned from a strange whim into a favorite hobby, and for someone even into its own business. However, in order to independently create your own little soap masterpiece, you will have to start from the very foundation - from the soap base. What is it and how to work with it?

Varieties of soap base

Despite the fact that in the manufacture of soap and other cosmetics, several different types of bases are used, their chemical composition is approximately the same. The soap base consists of water, as well as glycerol, sorbitol, various organic acids (palmitic, oleic, coconut and others) and their derivatives and sodium chloride. Sometimes other chemicals are added to the base to improve the quality of the future soap. It is their properties and percentage of content that determine the type of soap base.

Transparent and white base

The most common, basic soap base is of two types - transparent and white. In addition to the main components, it most often also contains stearic acid, propylene glycol, lauric acid and its derivatives - sodium laureth sulfate or sodium laurate. These substances are added in order to thicken and clean the soap mixture, but first of all, so that the finished product is better washed and forms more foam. The white base differs from the transparent one only in that it, among other things, also contains titanium dioxide - it is it that makes the base opaque and white. However, you can add this substance to a transparent base on your own - usually it is sold in the form of a powder in the same place as the base itself. Both bases must first be melted to a liquid state, and only then add essential oils, perfumes, dyes and other components of the future soap.

Organic base

Since the so-called “organic”, or “bio”, or “natural” ones have been especially popular recently, cosmetics, soap shops and offer an organic base for soap. It is usually sold at a higher price than usual. However, the benefit is that the composition of such a base is completely natural: only water and saponification products of vegetable fats (including glycerin, sorbitol and salts of fatty acids). The organic soap base does not contain either propylene glycol or sodium laureth sulfate - these substances are not environmentally friendly and can damage the skin, especially sensitive and prone to allergies.

How to find the right foundation

First of all, you need to decide what kind of cosmetic product you are going to make. This is the first and most important thing that should determine your choice of soap base.

• A transparent soap base is suitable for creating soap for any occasion - both ordinary toilet soap for oneself and a gift. In addition, do not forget about the possibility of turning a transparent base into white.
• White soap base is also suitable for creating ordinary soap. However, it can be an excellent material for various figures, figurines, soap cakes and cakes. White material is a good background for creating soap analogues of almost any item, thanks to it the colors will be quite realistic. With the desire and imagination, you can make anything from soap - from an elegant flower bouquet to a small copy of a toy robot.
• If it is fundamentally important for you that the soap consist solely of organic components - organic soap bases of any degree of hardness are at your service. Although cream and liquid bases appeared on the conditional soap market later than solid ones, now they are also available in an environmentally friendly version that does not contain sodium laureth sulfate.