Do All Natural Handcrafted Soaps
Have a Shelf life?

The answer is yes and no!

 Just like fine wine, Ida's Handcrafted Soaps get better with age.  Left to cure for several months, moisture will evaporate out of your bar of handmade soap and the soap will become slightly smaller, harder, longer lasting, and more mild. The harder (older) the soap, the longer it lasts and the better lather it produces. This resting process assures a fine quality product. You simply cannot rush a good thing.

 

The method we chose to superfat our soaps creates a bar with a high percentage of unincorporated  oils.  (We superfat our soaps more than our shampoo bars.)   This results in a more emollient, more moisturizing, and gentler soap.  Different oils impart different qualities to soap.  Some add lathering qualities, some moisturizing, some hardness, and so on.  We use a larger percentage of extra moisturizing and conditioning oils in our soaps and shampoo bars than many other soapmakers.  As a result, you may notice our bar soaps tend to be softer than those of other soapmakers, especially our shampoo bars which contain a large percentage of castor oil.

Natural soaps need to breathe.  Exposure to air promotes hardening of your soap and contributes to longer-lasting quality. Soap should be left unwrapped or wrapped with breathable materials.  Tight wrappers cause humid conditions by preventing evaporation of moisture.  

Ida's Handcrafted Soaps contain all natural fresh ingredients and no artificial preservatives.  We superfat our soaps by adding extra exotic oils and butters, like jojoba oil, avocado oil, or shea butter, at the end of the soap-making process.  These oils are not consumed in the soap making process and remain to nourish your skin.  These unreacted oils add beneficial properties to the soap, but they can spoil over long periods of time.  At Chagrin Valley Soap & Craft no synthetic stabilizers like BHT or Trisodium EDTA are used in our soaps to prolong shelf life. These materials can be skin irritants and are usually found in commercial soaps to extend their shelf life for years.  We use natural antioxidants, such as vitamin E oil, rosemary oil extract, and grapefruit seed extract to help prolong the shelf life of our superfatted soaps.

 

Store your natural handmade soaps in a dry, cool place away from excessive heat and humidity.  You can store them in their little brown bags!  Our scented soaps, like Lavender Rosemary, can be placed in your linen closet or dresser drawer to give a delightful fragrance to your linens and clothes while waiting to be used. 

As all natural soaps age, some of the natural essential oil scent may be lost over time, especially from the surface.  But it will be there when you lather up!  If you want to preserve the scents, you can store the soaps in plastic, but please ask us how "old" your soap is before doing so.  Our handmade soaps should not go in plastic until they are at least 3 months old. Over time, natural color may also fade. 

We recommend that you use your all natural soaps
within nine to twelve months of purchase.


 

My husband Howard doesn't really care too much about the scent or the colors!  He says the OLDER the BETTER! 

One customer wrote: We recently found an old bar of your soap in one of our
drawers called Lavender Tea.  (We have not made that soap for over two years.)
There was little scent left--but it was so creamy and boy did it lather!

For a complete description of each of the ingredients that are used in Ida's Handcrafted Soap please check out the "ingredients" page on this website.