Natural, Handmade Soap is our Thing  -  Our ten year anniversary has brought with it some big changes.  We're upping soap production, including shea butter in the new bars of soap and really working towards getting back to our roots and what we do best --- soap!   New bars of handmade soap coming soon. HANDMADE SOAP - Every kind of natural soap from: six types of lavender to mints, spices, mild soaps, daring soaps, face soap - all made by hand in our Tennessee workshop. Only vegetable oils are used with olive, coconut and soybean along with real essential oils and fragrant herbs.    The Green Guys HANDMADE SOAP - ah, our specialty! Every kind of natural soap from:  six types of lavender to mints, spices, mild soaps, daring soaps, face soap - all made by hand in our Tennessee workshop.  Only vegetable oils are used with olive, coconut and soybean along with real essential oils and fragrant herbs.  NOW WITH SHEA BUTTER ADDED SEE OUR LIST OF HANDMADE SOAPS.   ESSENTIAL OILS -  at Green Pergola, we offer our own line of essential oils. They are 100% pure and undiluted at a very competitive price. Being aromatherapists, we want to educate others about bringing essential oils into their everyday lives for their health and happiness.  Our list is long, everything from the basic aromatherapy oils  to our more complicated essential oil blends. SEE OUR LIST OF ESSENTIAL OILS AROMATHERAPY SOY CANDLES - True aromatherapy candles are made with real essential oils. Essential oils are extracted from plants, flowers, bushes, trees and woods --  With paper wicks, natural soy wax, pure essentials oils and a glass container, you can't get any more natural than that. 3 NEW CHOICES ADDED Calm and Relaxed Stress and Anxiety Lemongrass Sage SEE OUR AROMATHERAPY CANDLES. BATH AND BODY - bring a little nature into your next bath time.  Our shea butter bath salts feel wonderful on the skin, great for relaxation. For those who prefer liquid soap over bar soap, we have our handmade body wash or our natural shaving cream. SEE OUR BATH AND BODY PRODUCTS Sampler sets of handmade soap using your email address, subscribe to our newsletter for special promotions, coupons & tips: email: $15 Worth of Green Pergola Soap- ONLY $9.50 Whoops Bag - entire 3/4 pound of handmade soap. The tag reads: Nobody is perfect. End pieces of soap, soap that turned out the wrong color, special orders that were never picked up —– hey, its still the same great soap we always make. These pieces just didn’t grow up to become our normal, handcut bars that we label. SEE WHOOPS BAG   check out our  handmade soap GIFT SETS here.

THE HISTORY OF HANDMADE SOAP - article

You’ll be surprised to learn that many of the ingredients that go into making handmade soap are already in your kitchen. Soap is the end-result of mixing oils, lye and water. Whether you pull it off the supermarket shelf, buy the melt-and-pour soap from your local craft store or make it yourself from scratch, all soap begins with this process which is know as saponification.

During the excavation process of ancient Babylon, clay cylinders were found with a soap-like substance inside. This shows evidence that the process of soap making was around as early as 2800 B.C. The cylinders had inscriptions describing the process of boiling fats with ashes (a primitive form of soap making).

Records reveal that the ancient Egyptians bathed on a regular basis. The Ebers Papyrus, a medical document dated around 1500 B.C., describes combining alkaline salts with animal and vegetable oils to form a soap-like substance used for washing.

The story that sticks out in my mind most is the Roman legend of Mount Sapo (which, by the way, gave soap its name). Women noticed that washing their clothing was easier when done in the Tiber River which was directly below Mount Sapo, where ritual animal sacrifices took place. After a rainfall, a mixture of animal fats and ashes made its way down the mountain, turning into a crude form of soap along the way.

Later, early soap makers used potash, which was leached from wood ashes as their alkali base for soap making. Its results were often-times unpredictable, sometimes unpleasant in smell, and created soap that was more utilitarian than luxurious.

In the 1700’s, A French chemist named Nicholas Leblanc, invented a process for making an alkali using common salt.

During the 1800’s, a Belgian chemist named Ernest Solvay, discovered a process in which ammonia helped to extract the soda ash from salt efficiently. It soon became more readily available and its superiority, in turn, increased the quality of soap making.

In the 1940's chemists discovered how to change the molecular structure of some naturally occurring substances. What they discovered was called "detergent" (to differentiate it from soap). The big advantage to detergents is that they work well in hard or cold water and can be formulated to clean specific types of dirt and stains. Modern detergents (known as syn-dets, or synthetic detergents) have become quite sophisticated and are seen in many, many forms. In fact, the majority of the cleaning products on the market are actually detergents of some type or another. Even commercial bar soaps commonly contain all or part detergents. As a result, there is a new, common definition of soap. The common definition of soap now refers to any product that bubbles and cleans, particularly if it is in a bar form.

This seems to have created the confusion regarding what real soap actually is. Hardeners, whiteners, lather boosters, chemical fragrances (sometimes with as many as 500 separate chemical components to create their unique scent) are often found in “over the counter” store-bought, “soap” or detergent bars.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase, “oh, but I can’t use lye soap on my sensitive skin.” Let me reiterate something one more time: ALL soap begins with lye (or something just like it) and don’t let anyone try to tell you differently. The chemical name for lye is sodium hydroxide. When you read the label on a bar of soap, this is appears to be a bit disguised. Sodium Tallowate is the main ingredient found in most commercial soaps. What they are actually saying is that sodium hydroxide (lye) has been mixed with tallow (rendered from beef fat) and, in mixing these ingredients together, they have created a brand new word for you, the consumer --- sodium tallowate. How clever.

So, what is the difference between making your own handmade soap and the lye soap that our great-grandmothers made? There is a big difference. Most people I have encountered usually mention this is conversation, saying, “My grandmother used to make lye soap and it would rip your hide off.” That may be true but granny didn’t have a digital scale, back then, did she? Today’s modern soap maker has greater access to a wide range of quality ingredients. Granny did not have help from modern technology to let her know exactly, down to the gram, how much lye she was supposed to use in her combination of oils. Furthermore, dear Granny’s oils may have consisted of anything from beef fat to a whole season’s worth of saved-up bacon grease drippings.

Soap making has come a long way since the days of using old bacon grease. It took several months to formulate our Green Pergola handmade soap recipe. We use a combination of olive oil, coconut oil, soybean oil and shea butter. Most soap makers today use similar luxury oils as well as cocoa butter, mango butter, etc. On the other hand, there are still soaps made from lard, but, it is almost always made from fresh, clean lard -- not used. Handmade soap has become a luxury item in today's market where it originally was only used for utilitarian reasons and was discovered, quite by accident. The rest is soap history.

Gregory

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