100% natural, unique soap, handmade in the Tamar Valley, Cornwall
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About Us
We are a small family run business committed to making the best quality soap possible using only the best quality ingredients. We have worked to develop & improve our range without compromising our standards & limiting our impact on the environment as far as possible.
We are always learning new techniques & experimenting with different blends of oils, but the cold process method we use is very traditional, very slow & every stage is carried out entirely by hand. Because it is allowed to cure naturally, our soaps retain the balance of oils & glycerine needed to make a soap with effective cleansing power but which is still very gentle & suitable for even the most sensitive skin. There is a world of difference between our soap & ordinary mass-produced soaps which rely on chemical additives & artificial colours, preservatives & fragrances that can irritate & dry the skin.
Assisted by a fully qualified & practising aromatherapist we add pure essential oils to our recipes both for their tremendous skincare properties & their wonderful fragrances. Smell is our most evocative sense & each soap in our range has its own unique character & style. Some people stick with their favourite, some experiment with different soaps, or even use different soaps at different times of the day. Either way everyone should be able to find something to suit them, if not then let us know & we’ll see what we can do for you!
We make a 50% olive oil base, which guarantees a good lather with the right size & quantity of bubbles essential for the soap to work. We use a slightly different base for the shampoos & Ted’s Favourite to allow it to lather well in cold water. The soaps’ individual characters are derived chiefly from the addition of plant-based additives, usually seeds, herbs & spices, or flowers, &, in the case of the Seascape Soap, seaweeds.
All the soaps are further enriched with ‘superfats’, oils such as jojoba, hemp & avocado which are added in such a way that they are able to maintain their properties through the saponification process & add a luxurious, health giving quality to So Soapy soap. We only use natural colours, usually clays which are especially good because they give the soap a lovely smooth texture & and are beneficial in drawing toxins from the skin. They are naturally preserved with a grapefruit seed extract, which is unfortunately rather expensive but gives a good long shelf life.
Our principles are to use things originally derived from nature; grown, not made in a laboratory. It can be slightly misleading to call things entirely ‘natural’ because very often they have to be processed in some way to make them safe & usable, but we absolutely don’t have anything to do with the kind of nasty chemicals you see listed on a lot of products, or any cheap synthetic fragrances. The skin is our biggest organ & will absorb what you put on it, so it’s important to respect & look after it to stay healthy.
Before they are allowed into a So Soapy product we make sure that our ingredients are all sustainably sourced & have positive healthy benefits for the skin. We source all our ingredients as locally as we can, but unfortunately it is not yet possible to grow patchouli or ylang ylang in Cornwall, except possibly at The Eden Project!
It may be impossible to be perfect, but we do what we can to limit our impact on the environment. From the production stages, where everything is done by hand, to the final delivery, we are conscious of the need to use as little energy as possible. Some of the seeds & plants we use are grown organically in our own garden & we print all our own labels & promotional materials, using vegetable based inks, in order to avoid unnecessary waste & transport.
We have to package our products to keep them clean & safe but we always do so as simply as we can; the soap comes in a vegetable based biodegradable cellophane & we put things in boxes & bags which can be re-used.
We are members of CoaST (the Cornwall Sustainable Tourism Project), which seeks to promote local businesses working together to maintain ethical standards & sustainability in the tourist industry, delivering social, economic & environmental benefits to Cornwall. Our contribution is the guest bars & welcome packs we supply to hotels, holiday lets & B&Bs, a slice of Cornish paradise in your bathroom.
With the exception of a honey soap we make exclusively for The Lost Gardens of Heligan using their honey, all our products are totally vegan & none are tested on animals, except for Ted’s Favourite & Ted was quite happy to help.
So Soapy comply fully with EU regulations which means that all our recipes are safety assessed & certified by a qualified pharmacist. We are proud to be members of the Made in Cornwall scheme, run by Cornwall County Council Trading Standards department to provide support to genuinely Cornish craft based businesses.
