Giving the soap time to transform, allows the soap to concentrate in oil and makes it a high quality product with a much more comfortable effect on the skin.
Check that the terms OVERGREAS and Cold Saponified are present on your soap. If they are not written there is a strong chance that your soap is cooked for hours at high temperature and that the active ingredients, even organic or natural, are less effective or that your soap is a solid based on Tensio active ingredients found in shower gels for the body and which do not provide the comfort of oils.
The price of your cold process soap is also a good indicator. Made in small batches with organic ingredients in France, the surgras soap is generally more expensive and can go up to more than 10 euros for 40 gr if the ingredients are of high quality. But what happiness for the skin!
The lather is creamy and feelings of tightness disappear. Choose a hypoallergenic cold-saponified soap without perfume for baby's skin or for sensitive skin. For the face, choose a cleanser adapted to your skin type and with a PH close to the skin of the face.
Finally, your soap is made with natural ingredients, so it will be unique. It is not rare that from one delivery to another, you will see small differences. These are due to nature because a natural ingredient used cold and little transformed can vary according to the productions in color or smell.
As with all soaps, your cold-saponified solid soap can be perfumed. Check that the fragrance is natural (it is usually indicated in the list inci) and prefer soaps without fragrances and allergens without risk for the skin.
Nourishing or exfoliating, your cold-saponified superfatted soap is a two or three in one: it cleans the skin, exfoliates the body and softens the skin at the same time.
Other types of soaps will not provide the same benefits. They are heated soaps based on soap shavings or pellets. It is the hot saponification. Here, we will heat fatty substances with soda often in larger quantities. The soap paste will heat for several hours, then the release will get rid of the excesses of potash or soda. During this heating phase, a key ingredient for the skin unfortunately disappears too: Glycerin. It is it which brings this feeling of softness for the cold saponified surgras.
Finally there is another category of product which is not a soap but which is called a little quickly solid soap. It is a solid product based on surfactants that may or may not contain sulfates. We will be more on a classic solid, but not at all on a handmade soap. This solid product is also heated and its glycerin content is not as high.