Have you heard anyone call bar soap, lye soap? Or have you heard someone talk about "grandma's lye soap"? And have you ever wondered if your soap actually has lye in it? I am happy to tell you that Prairie Sage Soap Company only provides you soap that has no lye in it! But was it made with lye? Yes it was. And therein lyes (sorry, couldn't help myself) one major difference between a good soap and a bad soap.....if there is still lye remaining in the finished soap. The bottom line is that you cannot make soap without lye. But since lye is a caustic poison, you sure don't want any left in the finished product. Back in the day when Grandma made soap she didn't have access to a lye calculator so she pretty much had to guess about how much lye to use in her soap. And that sometimes resulted in what is called a "lye heavy" soap. And that is why I often hear my customers tell me that their Grandma's soap took their skin right off. :-) Lye is incredibly drying and will burn your skin. But with that handy dandy lye calculator I can "cheat" and make a perfect bar of soap using lye, that has none left over in the finished bar. In chemistry class you may have learned that lye is used to make that magical chemical reaction that changes a mix of water and oils into a bar of soap. Presto! We start with a pan of three things - and end up with a beautiful thing that looks nothing like what we started with. So does your bar of soap have lye in it? If you got it from me the answer is no.
Trisha
