ARE YOU USING THE RIGHT SOAP?

Do you often feel dry and itchy after a shower? Since I've moved out west, I constantly face this problem. This is because we have hard water. And I mean, it's really hard. But we aren't special, most of the U.S. has hard water too. Hard water has a higher concentration of calcium and magnesium. It leaves a mineral build up on surfaces over time and can also cause issues with soap lathering. 

The house we are currently in doesn't have a built in water softener so we added in a water softener shower head. It's work pretty well and was easy to install however it needs to be changed out every few months. It's a good cheap solution as long as it's maintained and I clean out the shower head periodically.

When I started making soap a few years ago, I wanted to make a soap that would be good for both hard and soft water. The first soaps I made didn't account for water condition and the soap left a residue on my skin that over time, became irritating.

After a little trial and error, I came up with our current soap recipe that contains a chelator. A chelator traps the contaminants (trace calcium and magnesium ions) so that instead of the soap molecules reacting with these ions, the chelator binds to them so that the soap can't react with them.

Our current soap recipe works really well and the chelator helps to prevent soap scum. No chelator will completely get rid of soap scum but it definitely helps! So when that old shower head needs to be replaced, I'm not worried about my soap leaving a serious residue behind. Instead, this balanced recipe allows for our soap to do what it's supposed to do! It lathers beautifully, cleanses nicely and rinses off easily. 

So when you are purchasing handmade cold process soap, remember to look at the ingredients list. If you have hard water, then you want to make sure a chelator has been added. Look for Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, or EDTA. Hopefully this will lead you to a cold process soap that works wondrously in your shower. 

-Happy Luxury Lathering!