“Lye-free soap” just doesn’t exist. All soap is made with lye. That is like trying to make a baking soda and vinegar volcano without the vinegar. No vinegar and you’ve just got a pile of baking soda. No lye, and you’ve just got a bucket of fat.
Soap is an alkali (like sodium hydroxide=bar soap or potassium hydroxide=liquid soap) combined with fats. Now, every fat requires a certain amount of lye to turn it into soap. That is where your knowledgeable soapmaker comes in handy. They know the different fats that make a wonderful bar of soap and how much lye to use. Suds and Lather only makes the cold process bar soap which is a superior bar of soap.
What about melt and pour you ask?
Some people think that using a melt & pour soap base is a good way to get around using lye. That’s just a work-around, 1) the M&P soap was made with lye by somebody else, so it was still involved in the process, and 2) M&P bases often have dodgy ingredients in them, like sodium lauryl sulfate (known to be irritating). But the whole reason to use handmade soap is to avoid unnecessary chemicals, petroleum products, and mysterious things that can be made with corn byproducts in a lab…
Wanna learn about the wonderful world of soap making? Start off with our Soap 101 class!
