What are Natural Soap Offcuts?
Natural Soap Offcuts are the unused soap pieces that are left over from the production process.
These soap scraps can be used to make a variety of products, such as soap balls and soapsicles but you can also purchase them from natural soap manufacturers if you don’t mind the soap bars being imperfect.
But first, let’s talk about how soap is made.
How is Natural Soap is Made?
Natural soap is a beauty product that can be made from a variety of ingredients.
The key ingredients are oils, water, and sometimes lye.
Certain oils have qualities that make them more suitable for different types of soap.
For example, coconut oil and palm oil are common choices because they have a high saponification value.
Olive oil, sweet almond oil, castor oil, and many other oils can also be used in making soap.
Essentials oils such as lavender, peppermint, tea tree or eucalyptus can be added to the mixture for fragrance and colouring purposes.
A mixture is then cooked until it reaches a certain temperature which then causes it to react with the lye to form soap.
The soap mixture is placed into molds and left to set for about 24 hours.
An artisan soap maker will have a variety of cutting tools that are used to create different soaps.
One cutter will cut the entire block of soap into thinner blocks, which can be used for bars of soap.
Other cutting tool will cut the sheets into circular shapes, squares or other shapes.
How are Natural Soap Offcuts Made?
Natural soap offcuts are made during the manufacturing process.
As the cutting tools are used they naturally leave behind misshaped pieces of soap.
In many production processes offcuts are considered to be waste and can end up in landfill however artisan soap makers are quite rightly avoiding this by selling their organic soap offcuts to consumers directly.
Whilst the soap offcuts may not look perfect they are entirely the same product in terms of quality as the original soap.
The major benefit of buying natural soap offcuts is the price, offcuts are almost always cheaper than the original product.
5 of the Best Natural Soap Offcuts for your Home
Soap Daze
Soap Folk
Mallini Soaps
The Dartmoor Soap Co.
Eco Soaps
What Other uses of Organic Soap Offcuts are there ?
As already mentioned the soap offcuts are the leftover pieces from the cutting of blocks of soap into bars.
These can be used for other household purposes such as dishwashing or laundry detergent – but they also have potential for other uses like creating candles.
The Rise of Imperfect Products
It is not a new phenomenon that imperfect products are gaining in popularity.
Many years ago we could buy something called “broken biscuits” which were essentially the original biscuit product that had been damaged but was still fit for consumption.
You just got the item much cheaper.
Imperfect products have been on the rise for a few years thanks to social media and the desire for authenticity.
These imperfect products are now regularly seen in our supermarkets and companies such as Oddbox have even created an entire business out of what was once considered waste.
Clothing and furniture are the latest products to be offered with imperfect variants and so
Conclusion
Natural soap offcuts are simply imperfect variants of the original product so if you are generally not worried about the way a soap bar looks then you can save yourself some money by buying the offcuts.
In addition to saving some money you’ll also have peace of mind that in a small way you helping to reduce the waste created by the soap manufacturing process – so that’s a win – win.
Have you tried organic soap offcuts recently or perhaps considering purchasing some soon.
I’d love to know what you think so please leave me a comment below
