The soap we purchase and use are only as good as the ingredients they are made out of. Oils for example are one of the most important components of soap bars and the overall quality of the soap depends on the properties of these oils. Carrier Oils and Essential Oils are two types of oils included on how to make your own soap.
Carrier Oil is a type of oil that is required to carry out the process of “saponification” – which is the heating of a particular type of fat to produce soap. The heating of lye and fat creates a chemical reaction that makes the end product necessary for making soap. Back when commercialized soap production was not yet in existence, people made soap traditionally through using animal fat. Nowadays, on the other hand, soap is now crafted out of carrier oils collected from natural sources like coconut oil or avocado oil.
Besides Carrier Oils, another kind of oil used in the making of soaps is Essential Oils. While carrier oils give the soap its therapeutic properties, essential oils give the soap its scent – along with some more helpful strengths the oil may add. In making soap, you need only put in a little amount of essential oil because it already holds enough potency even in small proportions. The scent essential oils also add to the soap is organic unlike the alternatively artificial perfumes some commercial soap is infused with.
Essential Oils and Carrier Oils make up the basic components of soap, but as soap makers gain experience and confidence they often start to experiment with more ingredients to give each bar of soap different scents and properties, making each one even more unique. Different ingredients mean different attributes for each bar of soap, giving them their own distinct scents, colors, as well as therapeutic benefits. There are a lot of possible combinations to use when making soap, you can explore your creative freedom because of the wide range of ingredients to choose from.
The different elements that make up each bar of soap give them a look and smell that attracts us and is pleasing to our senses, but beyond that, they are also good for skin care because of the helpful and therapeutic ingredients.
To elaborate, essential oils which are an essential component of soaps are usually added into soap recipes mainly for the fragrant aroma they give out – but their usefulness is not at all limited to the pleasant scent they give. Essential oils also play a therapeutic role. They can act as antifungal or antibacterial agents thus treating a lot of the skin conditions people usually have to deal with. Specific example are the tea tree oil which remedies acne and the chamomile oil which when used as an element in soap bars gives out a relaxing aroma. Keeping each essential oil’s uses in mind can help you come up with more blends to make distinctive characteristics to your soap creations.
Essential oils are pretty easy to come by. They are made from extracts derived from tree roots, flowers, or seeds. These extracts go through the process of distillation, resulting in the final product that is sold in stores. Go and visit your local markets to choose from different essential oils, you can choose from rosemary, clove, cinnamon, lavender, and a lot more to start making sweet-smelling soaps of your own.