The vegan bathroom: soap

Whilst tackling the household cleaning products, I decided to review our personal care unctions and potions. The list is almost as long: liquid soap, bar soap, shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, mouthwash, face wash, exfoliating wash, moisturiser, and shaving gel. It had taken me a long time to find some facial moisturiser that suited my eczema prone skin, so I was reluctant to change this. OH always seems to get my rejects. Indeed, he’s still working his way through these. I checked out the Avene brand that I buy in the pharmacy. The company’s own website stated that the products were not tested on animals, although this was disputed elsewhere, mainly I think due to the “China issue”. There is an argument that any company which exports to China cannot claim it does not test on animals as China’s trade terms require all imports to be tested. Companies get around this with separate manufacturing processes which do not test on goods sold within Europe and the US. It’s an ethical issue I am saving for the future, but I know that, ultimately, I’ll have to find a replacement.

I decided to start with soap. I didn’t study science at school so my knowledge of chemical symbols and processes is scant. Still, in my investigation of soap I wanted to start by finding exactly what soap is, in simple terms. The earliest soaps can be traced back to Babylon, 2800 BC, although many other ancient civilizations used a form of soap. Real expertise in soap making came in the Middle East in the Islamic Golden Era (8th-13th century). From there, soap-making skills were exported to Europe, in particular the Marseille region of France, the Castille region of Spain and Italy – all areas where the raw materials, olive trees, prosper.

The basic process involves mixing a fatty acid (an oil, such as olive oil) with an alkali (known as lye, usually sodium hydroxide, but in the past ash). In this cold process, a chemical reaction occurs called saponification and the end result is soap. Of course, in practice it’s a bit more complicated than that, so for now I have ruled out actually making the soap from scratch. As with so many things, there are soaps and then there are soaps. And you are not always comparing like with like.

I’d read many articles about the bad things in soaps and detergents, although it is difficult to find information from what I would consider to be genuine scientific sources. Some commentators are on the fringes of wacky, but many agreed that some ingredients are at worst carcinogens and at least, irritants and allergens. The SLS connection was discovered by a Bristol University professor, which is good enough for me. Unfortunately, the same one as blew the whistle on my favourite cheap moisturiser, aqueous cream. The cheaper the product the more likely it is to contain some or all of these ingredients. Some of the worst culprits are said to be sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS) a common surfactant, dioxane, said to be carcinogenic, parabens used as preservatives, propylene glycol, an alcohol that is a skin irritant, DEA, a wetting agent linked to cancer, and triclosan, an anti-microbial (remember the Microban craze? It was in everything, even kids’ clothes), now said to be an allergen linked to childhood asthma. It was all a bit disturbing and I’d not even got onto the animal testing aspect.

Two of my favourite soaps, Dove and Petite Marseilles warranted further investigation and the news was not good. I found an article that suggested Dove contained sodium tallowate, which is extracted from animal fat. So, I checked Dove’s website (Unilever) and found that, yes, it was a listed ingredient. How many people know that? For several years now we’ve been using the Petite Marseilles soap that you see on every supermarket shelf here, it must be one of the biggest sellers. The packaging says that it is made ‘a l’anncienne’ thus, implying that it is a traditional soap. A great deal of soap does hail from Marseille which historically was the home of soap manufacture in France. Surprisingly, the Savon de Marseille is not an artisan protected mark, unlike the AOP and Red Label products that the French are so keen on. True Savon de Marseille should only contain two ingredients – 72% olive oil and 28% de la soude (soda: sodium hydroxide, that makes it into soap). However, I read an article on a French consumer website that was essentially an expose of the Petite Marseille brand, suggesting that the soaps contained a long list of chemical ingredients and were in reality just another type of industrial soap. The French tend to come at this from another angle – the environment rather than animals, so their grief was that many of these ingredients are not biodegradable and so should not get into the water system. Whichever way I looked at it, it seemed that the cute little Petit Marseille with his stripey jumper has had his day. But what to replace him with?

Three types of soap kept coming up in my research: Savon de Marseille vert and noir (the genuine artisan soap, not the industrial), Savon d’alep and castille soap. The common denominator in all of these is the humble olive. Savon vert is the most common Savon de Marseille and gets its green colour from olives; it is used for everyday washing. The cream colour Savon de Marseille is produced from palm oil. Savon noir is related to Moroccan black soap, an ancient paste made from black olives, mixed with salt and charcoal that developed in Syria over 3000 years ago. It is still used in the Hammam (bathing) ritual. In France, Savon noir tends to be promoted as a household cleaning soap. Savon d’alep is favoured as a facial soap. It originates from the Syrian city of Aleppo, where the totally natural product was made from olive and laurel (laurier) oil. It contains no perfume or colourants and is very soft, hence its use as a daily washing soap. Castille soap is another olive-based soap, but tends to be liquid rather than solid. It was developed in the olive-growing Castille region of Spain.

The first thing I realised was that sourcing true natural soap was not going to achieved if I was looking to buy on price. I could get four 100 gram bars of industrial Marseille soap for €1.74 in SuperU. My criteria were first, a natural artisan soap, with minimum ingredients, vegan and, if possible, certified cruelty free. As always, this last factor is the most difficult to establish. I really wanted to buy a three-bar pack of Kiss My Face olive oil soap. It contains only three ingredients, bears the reliable Leaping Bunny label and is made in Italy. However, it might be made in Italy but it seems only possible to buy it from the US. The postage cost was equal to the price of the product (€6.94). The Bio coop does sell a range of loose savon de Marseille of various flavours and sizes, but whilst the lack of packaging is a good thing, a little bit information about its provenance would come in handy. (I wasn’t going to start asking questions, they already think I’m mad asking for vegan cheese). Then, we happened to pop into the other smaller bio shop in St Junien. The shelves were a little bare (read, virtually empty) but what they did have was good, and not expensive in bio terms. I bought a lovely 100g bar of pure olive oil soap made in France by the Douce Natur brand, an ethical company based in the Ardeche that don’t use animal testing on their 100% bio products, at €2.03 I was happy with the cost, and it is great soap. Next, I started researching liquid soap – for hand-washing (we need three bottles, four if you count the campervan) and shower gel replacement. It was then that I discovered Dr Bronner – a discovery so exciting that it will need a blog post all of its own.