INCI on soap

[jwahlton]

I had thought if you list your ingredients on your soap labels you must list everything, including Sodium Hydroxide. I could be wrong (often am), but just wondering

[RobinInOR]

I think because there is a soap exemption for labeling, people take liberties with how they list their soap ingredients, if they list them at all. And you could get into the tangle of "do I list what I put into the mix, or what is there after it's all done". For example, Canada's new labeling laws are actually "what's in the bar after it's all done", very difficult indeed.

Since w/o a lab I can't tell what the proper %s are on the "after it's all done" option, I put everything that goes into the batch, on the label.

[Rebecca_IA]

I had thought if you list your ingredients on your soap labels you must list everything, including Sodium Hydroxide. I could be wrong (often am), but just wondering

That is what my understanding was, if you list any of them, you have to list them all. There are different ways to list your ingredients, you list the name of the oil after it's been saponified, like sodium tallowate, or you list water, tallow and sodium hydroxide.

But you had to list all ingredients if you listed any of them (excepting the under 1%).

This is off the top of my head, I don't have any notes to dig through to see if my research agrees with me though.

[RobinInOR]

Even the under 1%ers have to be listed. But they can be listed in any order you want, not necessarily by their real %

[Lorrie]

I am not sure if I am right but I try and list what goes in the pot and in the order of largest to smallest. I also use the common names too. Like Olive oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, lye etc.

I guess the reason for doing that is incase soemone is allergic they know that it's in the soap. I am not sure if I am right for doing this..

[jwahlton]

I am not sure if I am right but I try and list what goes in the pot and in the order of largest to smallest. I also use the common names too. Like Olive oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, lye etc.

I guess the reason for doing that is incase soemone is allergic they know that it's in the soap. I am not sure if I am right for doing this..

I list from largest to smallest (at least I try to) but I've seen labels lately that doesn't have the sodium hydroxide on them.

[Crafty1_AJ]

I have seen plenty of labels like that too, Julia. It's interesting to me to hear some soapers claim that their soap has no active lye in the finished bar (true -- unless they miscalculated and the batch is lye heavy). Yet they tout all the nice oils that went into the bar. How can you say there's no lye, but there's olive oil in there? Even if you superfat, without a lab test you can't for sure say how much "olive oil" is left in the bar of soap. You're just making a rough guess at the unsaponifiables remaining.

When I hold a bar of castile soap in my hands, I am NOT holding olive oil! (Eew, that would be running all over the place!) The lye changed the fatty acids into soap, which is a new thing, KWIM? Actually soap is a salt; it's no longer lye and oils at all. A chemical reconfiguration/transformation has taken place.

I am not saying which way to list is right or wrong. I'm just saying that I've seen too many people who are inconsistent in how they handle it. They want their cake and to eat it too. Doesn't seem fair -- you can't have it both ways.

Having said that, on to your question. I believe the most objective way to handle the labeling is to put down whatever you used to make the soap, just as a baker labels the ingredients that went into the loaf of bread or the cake. I do include sodium hydroxide on my labels. Only one customer has ever asked me what that was; the rest were clueless or couldn't care less. LOL

I agree with the poster who said it's wise to put the oils you used just in case of allergies. No sense taking chances, even though the soy oil used to make the bar may no longer be soy at all. It's saponified -- big difference -- but again, no way of knowing how much / what kind of unsapped stuff you have in your finished product. And not being a doctor, I'd rather be safe than sorry about what might or might not trigger an allergic reaction. There could still be proteins there that I know nothing about, but that are potential allergens for some.

[Crafty1_AJ]

Sometimes I feel like listing my ingredients like this:

Made with Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Sodium Hydroxide (DEAL with it), Palm Kernel Oil, and fragrance.

Actually I do give my customers a bit of an education (general overview) of the soapmaking process when necessary, just to assure them that it's safe to use, and no active lye remains in the finished soap. I *don't* tell them that I touch a tiny sliver of each batch to my tongue to test for zap. I liken it to baking a cake. It's not a perfect analogy, but the baking powder interacts chemically with the other ingredients to cause the cake to rise. When you eat cake, you're not really eating eggs and baking powder; you have a new thing that's been created: cake.

[Bunny]

I totally agree about listing the lye.. If you're not going to list it, then pay someone to figure out how much of each oil is left in the soap once it's done going though saponification. Then list all your cocoates and palmates and stuff and the beginning, and the raw name of each oil to, as there's a few free oils still in there. Back to looking like a chemical bar, even if we all know the difference. I'd rather have to list what goes in, in order of course, and save the rest of my label for lookin' pretty!

(and with 9 oils in my base soap, listing without the lye would more than likely take up the whole freakin label!)

It's all about doing what's right, and it just may not be easy. Yeah, you might have to explain to a few customers. Such is life.

[soulshine]

I didn't list lye on my labels but I did list the oils.... Since I'm pretty much out of everything that was labeled {don't worry, it's all family and friends at this point, but hopefully won't be soon} Guess it's time to get back into doing research on what the heck I'm s'posed to put on that darn thing... How do you figure out the % with the oils and the lye & water? I'm not the best at that whole math thing...

[RobinInOR]

Total up how many ounces of everything in the batch - oils, lye, water. Then take each individual item and divide it's weight by the total, and multiply by 100. Then order everything on the label in descending % order.

Example: 32 oz batch of soap is (this is NOT a real recipe)

20 oz olive oil

12 oz coconut

4 oz lye

8 oz of water

TOTAL 44 oz

olive 20/44 * 100 = 46% (rounding)

coconut 12/44 * 100 = 27%

lye 4/44 * 100 = 9%

water 8/44 * 100 = 18%

so that label would be: Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Water, Sodium Hydroxide, Fragrance... plus your colors and other additives wherever they fall into the mix.

On my labels I think it goes oil, water, more oil, sodium hydroxide, more oil.....