It sure sounds good, "Artisan Handmade Soap." "Artisan" just makes things sound bespoke and special. Artisan cheese, artisan bread. I'm salivating already.
I'm a mom of five, though, and a farmer to boot - I don't have money to throw around on fancy-sounding products. I need bang for my buck. In a soap, I'm looking for a bar that lasts, and I'm putting it on the people who are most important to me, so i need a bar that's healthy to use. My kids have sensitive skin, so it can't have anything irritating. And me? I'm almost 46 years old, so it can't be drying. Artisan? Only if it also means quality.
With a tight budget you bet I'm tempted by the bars on the bottom shelf at the grocery store, the ones that cost $0.99. After becoming a soap maker, however, I've gotten an education in soap ingredients. It turns out most of those cheap bars aren't actually soap at all. Companies call them "cleansing bars" or "beauty bars" because a true soap is a bar made from naturally saponified plant or animal-based oils - calling them soap would be a false claim.
If a "cleansing" bar isn't soap, what is it? It's a bar of petroleum-based synthetic chemicals. Now, everything's a chemical and I'm not interested in fear mongering (chemical makeup of water: H20). But when I say these bars are made of petrochemicals, that's a fact.
You'll find these ingredients in many non-soap bars: