The soap-making renaissance of the 1970s came about because people wanted to be more natural, more “green”, and less dependant on chemicals in their lives.
Many of today’s commercial soaps have fragrances, detergents, surfactants, and water conditioners that could very well affect plants and wildlife if deposited into a river or stream. However, the natural soaps (bar and liquid) described below can be made to be very safe and biodegradable.
Basically, you want to make the soap (bar or liquid) without any artificial colors or fragrance oils. Essential oils safe for humans would be fine to use since they are natural materials and will degrade. Natural colorants would be okay too but probably aren’t even necessary in a soap for camping.
Some articles suggest using a Castile soap. This is perfectly fine, but unnecessary. As long as you’re using natural (animal or vegetable) oils, the choice of oils isn’t going to affect the biodegradability of the soap.
Other environmental purists will recommend using organic soap. If you have some organic oils to use for soap making, great but don't worry if you don't. Taking the extra effort to use only organic oils in your soap is admirable but not really necessary.
Here are two natural soap-making recipes to get you started.
This recipe uses primarily olive oil as well as coconut oil and soybean oil. In order to create an environmentally conscious soap, try to avoid using palm oil due to environmental controversies surrounding palm-oil farming.
The recipe is composed of:
To make about three pounds of soap, the recipe needs:
Follow basic soap-making instructions to create your soap. If you don’t have these exact oils, you can certainly create your own recipe; just focus on more earth-friendly oils and don’t use any artificial colors or fragrances.
This recipe uses a zero-percent lye discount. If you don’t mind the soap being slightly cloudy and want it to be a bit milder, use a 1-to-2-percent lye discount instead.
The recipe is composed of:
To make about three pounds of soap paste, the recipe needs:
For liquid soap, follow basic liquid soap-making instructions—but leave out step seven, the neutralization step.
And remember that natural and green doesn’t have to apply to just camping. These recipes are perfectly good for everyday bathing and showering too.
The original written by David Fisher
RM1612, Morgen-100 Mansion, Ronghui Zhongjiang Plaza
