Ingredients
"Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas."
Natural ingredients prepared in simple ways - that's the best and only way to make our Miss Emma's Everyday Soap.
Olive oil
Olive Oil has known by centuries for its deep moisturising and nourishing properties. Olive oil is rich of antioxidants, and it provides vitamins and fatty acids which leaves skin soft, moisturised and protected.
I often infused herbal flowers (lavender, rose, calendula...) into olive oil for the subtle nature flora smell for the unscented soap making.
Coconut oil
Coconut oil is one of the most common ingredients in soap making. It mainly provides the most cleaning ability in soaps and generate a lot of bubbles. As a hard oil, it also helps to harden the soap bar and gives the longer lifespan. The percentage of coconut oil in soap is important as too much coconut oil can make skin feel dry. However, if it’s paired with other ingredients that offer the benefits to the skin, the soap made with coconut oil will be bubbly, moisturising and giving you a good cleanness.
Shea Butter
Shea butter makes your skin feel luxurious and moisturizing with its very high conditioning properties. It’s also categorised as the hard oil, hence it helps to harden the bar and provide the longer lifespan. It contains very high percentage of saturated oils which increase the lather stability.
Cocoa Butter
Cocoa butter is rich, delicious and provides a blend of healthy fatty acids and antioxidants from Cacao bean. It is solid and hard at room temperature but has very smooth texture once melted into liquid form. Cocoa butter needs to be tempered for the best results in soap making and it adds the firmness and moisture to soap bar.
Clay
Clays are a popular nature additive for soap making. It serves as a natural, gentle exfoliant removes oils, impurities, and dead cells from your skin. It also adds natural colour to make soap bars look earthy and colourful.
Other plant-based oils
There are a variety of plant-based oils used for making soap. Each oil contains different types of fatty acids which contribute the different properties in soap. Some generate more lather; some provide more conditioning, and some might stabilise the creaming bubbles. In Miss Emma’s Everyday Soap, we use Avocado oil, macadamia oil, hemp seed oil, castor oil and many other different plant-based oils.
Picture from top: Olive oil, Avocado oil, Macadamia oil, Hemp seed oil
Honey and Beeswax
My uncle was a bee keeper, so I literally grew up with honey. The benefit of adding honey in soap is not just its natural anti-inflammatory actions but the anti-bacterial properties also help keep the soap lasting longer. Honey is also full of antioxidants and naturally attracts moisture to your skin, so how can you not love honey?
The honey we use is from a bee farm in north shore- Madam Bee Honey
Beeswax is wax not oil- which means it won’t contribute much to neutralise lye. Just like honey, it keeps the moisture locked on your skin and makes the bar harder and last longer.
Oat and other ingredients
Oat is not just a healthy choice for breakfast but also a very good ingredient in soap making as it’s well-known for soothing dry, itchy, or irritated skin. Oat milk is full of antioxidants and nutritional value that can moisture and nurture your skin. If adding extra oatmeal (powder) in the soap, it can work as an exfoliant and gently remove the dead skin cells. Oat certainly is a multifunction ingredient that does the cleansing, moisturising, and reducing inflammation for skin.
There are also some similar ingredients can be introduced in soap making, for instance, almond milk, brown rice, Chinese barley, and soy milk… they are all full of vitamin E and other nutrition that are good for your skin.
Lavender, Rose and tea...
Lavender has been used for centuries in many countries especially in Europe. Its relaxing natural aroma is believed to help promote calmness and reduce stress and anxiety. For skin and hair, some research shows that lavender oil can improve hair regrowth. Lavender has also shown positive results in helping with eczema.
We also use chamomile, calendula, roses and green tea... in Miss Emma’s Everyday Soap. They are all my beautiful tea collections for my daily afternoon tea time.
Essential oils
Essential oils are the reason that soap smells so nice. We use a variety of essential oils in Miss Emma’s Everyday Soap, including lavender, cedarwood, patchouli, rosemary, peppermint, lemon myrtle, rose… etc. The amount of essential oil is crucial as too much can cause skin irritation and also jeopardise the soap saponification. We carefully calculate the minimum amount of essential oils but enough to bring relaxation to scented soap bar.
