Natroma Organic Handmade Soy Milk Soaps

Sadly these organic vegan friendly soy milk soaps haven't proved to be very popular, so will soon be discontinued.  These are older soaps with a milder fragrance so the last few bars are on special offer! Now wrapped in tissue paper - no box.

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A couple of years ago we launched our organic palm-free soaps which did not include our usual organic goat's milk.  They were developed as a vegan-friendly alternative for customers, but surprisingly have never been very popular.  We found that many customers who had moved to a mainly vegan diet, continued to use the goat's milk soaps (possibly because our goat's milk comes from a small organic herd on a local farm that provides work experience for young adults with special needs).    We have no doubt that part of the preference for our award winning goat's milk soap is that it has a superior, rich creamy lather.

So we decided to look at developing a new vegan-friendly soap, that would contain a botanical milk.  We chose soy milk since it contains many skin-kind vitamins and minerals, and gives natural soap a rich, bubbly lather that is similar to our goat's milk bars.  We think the lather has finer bubbles, but it still feels feels very soft and creamy.  It has the same qualities as our goat's milk soaps - gently cleansing the skin without stripping away the skin's natural oils.  It's a nice firm bar, that is long lasting and doesn't go soft quickly if it's allowed to drain on a free draining soap dish.  It continues to be perfect to use in the bath or shower, as a natural alternative to detergent based shower gels.

We'd also describe these new soaps as being infusion soaps.  This means that we've included an infusions of herbs in each bar (it's similar to how you make tea, but the infusion is stronger to ensure more of the botanical ingredient remains in final bars).  We chose botanicals that have natural skin care benefits, and developed their essential oil fragrances with sensitive skin in mind - so none of these soaps have particularly strong fragrances. Choose from:

Chamomile- a lovely mild scented soap with a chamomile infusion, containing gentle Lavender, Patchouli and German Chamomile essential oils, with golden calendula petals.

Green Tea- contains an organic green tea infusion, fragranced with uplifting Mandarin, Spearmint, Lemon and Lime essential oils.

Nettle - contains a wild nettle infusion, with a gentle essential oil blend that includes  Lavender, Geranium and Mandarin essential oils, with a sprinkle of Nettles in the soap.  It's lightly fragranced to suit sensitive skin types.

Seaweed - this contains a natural seaweed infusion (it smelt really salty, when we making this soap) with pieces of kelp and spirulina in the soap (it may be slightly exfoliating). Fragranced with a refreshing blend of Rosemary, Eucalyptus, Vetiver and Peppermint.

Organic Soy Milk Soap Ingredients:

Organic base Ingredients: Saponified olive oil, coconut oil, RSPO sustainable palm oil, cocoa butter, shea butter), sweet almond oil with organic soy milk, botanical infusions and essential oils.

These soaps are vegan-friendly since they do not contain any animal derived ingredients.

As with our other soaps, these have been made by hand in wooden moulds.  We use a traditional cold-process production method, so the soap is cured for several months before each bar is prepared for sale.  During this time it is regularly turned to ensure it cures correctly and we keep testing the bars until we're satisfied they're ready for use.  Our soaps are labelled as 95g, but most bars are usually heavier than this since we make them larger to allow for the curing and natural shrinkage. Each bar is hand cut and trimmed, before being packaged in tissue paper.  Our organic soy milk soaps contain natural botanicals, which unfortunately tend to discolour in cold process soap.  These botanicals may provide a light exfoliating effect but will soften with water, so don't worry about them being scratchy.  Every bar is handmade and completely unique so patterning, shape and colours will vary between batches.

A note about our use of RSPO sustainable palm oil:    We decided to return to using organic RSPO palm oil in these soaps (it's also in our goat's milk soaps) - this is a palm oil grown in a sustainable way, that does not damage the natural environment.  This ingredient is important in soap making since it creates a hard, long lasting bar (if you look at many commercial soap labels, you'll see it listed first or second on the list of ingredients).  This means that a soap containing palm oil lasts, and this makes it better for the environment than a softer melt and pour style soap (often used in detergent based shampoo bars).   In our palm-free bars we had to substitute several different oils to try to re-create a similar long-lasting bar of soap, and we were concerned that the substitute ingredients were probably less sustainable than the palm oil we were trying to avoid.  It's a huge dilemma for small manufacturers like us since we want to do the right thing for the planet, but in seeking alternatives you can end up making matters worse.  We have continued to monitor the situation with palm oil, and feel that the advice we originally received from BOS UK about it being ok to use RSPO palm oil in our soaps is still true.

In recent years the palm oil industry has received a huge amount of bad press, with environmental campaigns calling for consumers to boycott palm oil containing products.  But you cannot escape the fact that this oil is produced on such a huge scale because the palm oil plant is so efficient in producing a high yield of oil.   There is now a growing acceptance that palm oil is something of a necessary evil, since it efficiently provides the world with an affordable food oil whilst providing employment and supporting local communities.  If the the palm oil plantations were dug up, they'd be replaced with another plant (such as coconut palms), and this would inevitably increase deforestation since no other plant produces so much oil per hectare.  So it's likely that well intentioned avoidance of palm oil containing products, could unfortunately lead to even bigger problems in the long run.  BUT...it's important to understand that all palm oil is not equal.  RSPO palm oil is produced in a sustainable way, following accepted guidelines that monitor and control the global impact on local environments, limiting or stopping further deforestation.  It's more expensive than normal palm oil, but we think it's worth the extra expense.   We hope our customers can see we have not taken the decision to continue using RSPO palm oil lightly, and after taking everything into consideration it seems the right thing to do if we're going to continue producing top quality natural soaps that our customers want to buy.