BAR BASICS:
What is cold-process soap?
Cold process soap is made by combining oils and sodium hydroxide (lye), which causes a chemical reaction called saponification. In the process, each maker gets to choose the oils, scents, colorants, and any additional ingredients like exfoliants, additives, or toppers!
This process allows the lye mixture to be neutralized without any outside sources of heat, called “curing”. This is quite a time-consuming process that allows for gradual saponification. It can take 4-6 weeks for the soap to cure. The lack of heat keeps the essential oil intact and in perfect condition to lather you in therapeutic goodness.
Does cold-process soap clean as well as other brand name soaps?
Yes! In fact, many brand name "soaps" aren't soaps at all. If you start looking at the ingredients, you'll realize they're much more similar to detergents (see: syndets or synthetic detergents) that you use to wash your laundry or dishes! During the soapmaking process, a byproduct is created called glycerin. Large companies, for the sake of mass-production and cost efficiency, will replace glycerin with chemicals. Glycerin is worth more than all those chemicals combined, providing the sought-after cleaning, soothing, and moisturizing properties that you're looking for in your soap.
By cold-processing our soap, the glycerin forms naturally in our bars from plant-derived oils. This means you're getting a quality bar that will help nourish and protect your skin, all while cleansing it as well as, if not better than - your typical bar of drugstore soap.
Which bars are best for daily use?
All of our bars are formulated for daily use! We love them in the shower and by the sink each day. The nourishing mango butter in our bars has kept our skin soft, and any dryness at bay.
Which bars are best for exfoliating?
Any bars that contain orange peel, cranberry seeds, lemon peel, or coffee grounds will be best for exfoliating!
What is the shelf life for a bar of soap?
With daily use, our bars last 3-4 weeks on average! We recommend a few things to extend the life of those bars: store your soap in a place that will allow it to dry out between uses (i.e.- not under a direct stream of water), get a well draining soap dish or soap saver, and use a loofah or shower cloth/glove to create your soap lather (getting the maximum lather with minimum effort).
If you've stocked up on a few bars and are working your way through using them, you can store future bars in a cool dry place. This just allows them to continue the curing process so that you end up with a harder, milder bar when you're ready to use it! That being said, when shipped or picked up, all our bars have finished the mandatory 4-6 week curing process and are ready to use the moment you bring them home.
LIRAMELLE BASICS:
Where did the name Liramelle come from?
It's a combination of Cassie's maiden name and married last name! She loves them both and decided to combine the past and the present to form her future endeavor.
Where are Liramelle bars made?
They're created in our little soap workshop in Seattle, Washington!
How long does it take to make the final product?
A lot goes into making the bar that you'll soon hold in your hand! We start the ideation process a few months before the bar is created and like to envision how we want the bar to look and feel for you as a customer. We'll typically measure our ingredients the night before we cold-process the soap, and the next day our fun begins. The prep involved in making the soap takes about 1-2 hours, the soapmaking process takes 1.5 hours, and the cleanup takes another 1.5 hours! Once the soap is in "loaf form" (aka, in the mold), it needs to harden up for 24-48 hours before being cut.
After cutting, the bars cure in a cool dry place (aka, our Soap Locker) for 4-6 weeks depending on the oil formulation we used. During this time, the bars become more vibrant in color, and the water used in the recipe slowly evaporates, creating a harder and longer-lasting bar.
Can I request custom bars or scents to be made?
Unfortunately, due to our small size and large ambitions, we have a hearty roster of soaps we'll be introducing each season leading to reduced bandwidth for taking custom orders. If you have fragrance ideas for bars you'd like to see, feel free to use the Contact form and send them in! If we hear from enough customers that they might be interested in that scent, we'll take that into consideration, but we can't guarantee we'll use the fragrance.
What does the upcoming bar launch schedule look like?
Each season, we'll have 5-8 bars that we produce in varying quantities. At this point in time, we're releasing bars weekly for preorder and notifying our @liramelleapothecary Instagram followers of this in a post after the bars are cut and we know how the quantity of what we'll be offering. This may change as we grow and evolve, but for now our weekly releases feel fun and sustainable for us!
Pro tip: set a notification reminder for our Instagram posts if you'd like to be clued in to which bars are coming next, or if you have a certain bar you're hankering to buy!
What's the secret ingredient to your bars?
Mango butter! Aside from giving our bars their luxurious moisturizing properties, mango butter contains several vitamins that are known to benefit skin. Mango itself contains salicylic acid and antioxidants, which are known to protect from sun damage. Mango butter isn’t made from the flesh of the fruit, but rather it’s from the oil from the seed or kernels of the mango tree, which hold the same benefits. We personally love it because when winter comes, it holds eczema and drying skin conditions at bay. This magical ingredient is helpful for skin conditions requiring deep hydration and conditioning to heal faster.
Do all soaps contain nut oil?
Not all bars do, but about half of them will contain Sweet Almond oil in trace amounts. If a bar contains a nut oil, we will list it in the product description! Please read each product's ingredient list to ensure your sensitivies are considered when buying your bars.
Do all soaps contain palm oil?
Not all bars do, but most contain sustainable palm oil. Palm oil is part of our "secret recipe trifecta" of oils which produce a beautiful lather in our bars. Our palm oil comes from a supplier that's part of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. The RSPO has developed a set of environmental and social criteria which companies must comply with in order to produce Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO). When they are properly applied, these criteria can help to minimize the negative impact of palm oil cultivation on the environment and communities in palm oil-producing regions.
ADDITIONAL Q'S? Reach out to us on our Contact page!