Sweaty Soap; What It's Telling You

All the photos in this blog post are of my soaps...sweaty and non-sweaty alike.

My soap can of course sweat...see the little sparkly bits on the top and sides of the football soap pictured to the left? That simply means the glycerin in the soap base, when exposed to humidity in the air, can draw the moisture to itself, creating a form of "glycerin dew", or sweat. It's not harmful, and it doesn't detract from the beneficial qualities of the soap.

Sweating most frequently occurs when the soap's not wrapped immediately after curing, so it doesn't often happen to me...I shrink-wrap my soaps after they're removed from the molds. Once they're opened, even in the bathroom, I seldom get sweat, but it can happen, and it's okay that it does.

Cold processed soaps and hot processed soaps--the two basic made-from-scratch types of soap, don't sweat. Sweating is unique to melt-and-pour soaps.

So why am I bringing this up? I make no secret of the fact that I buy M&P soap base. From there, I melt it carefully so it doesn't overheat, I add fragrances and colors, and I design the patterns of swirls, add embeds (if any), and mold the soap. It is handcrafted soap, it is real soap, and I'm proud of what I produce. I purchase the best available base from a company that's been making this soap for over 45 years. Their dedication to quality is unquestioned, their standards are strict, their professionalism is beyond reproach, their ingredients are top-of-the-line, and their controls on pH are flawless. It's by far, not the least expensive soap base around, and I will never, ever use a cheap, lower-quality soap base in my products.

But it's frustrating in this industry of handcrafted soaps, because frankly, some people lie. I have people who sell soap in the same town/area as me, who make M&P soaps, who lie and say they make it from scratch. I've seen them lie about organic ingredients, about the process by which they make soap, about their fragrances...and it's frustrating to deal with their lies and their frauds, and not publicly call them out when I hear them continuing their lies.

One of the people who continually lies about her soaps, always has a problem with glycerin dew/sweating. She doesn't wrap them, and when pulled from the containers, they're slimy with glycerin dew. I've used her soap, and I like it...I like it because based on what she claims her ingredients are, she's using the same soap base I do. It's not her soap with which I have a problem, it's her misrepresentation of her soap.

I would assume those who lie about their soaps have their own reasons for doing so, but they're defrauding their customers when they do that. Perhaps they think they won't have as easy a time in marketing their products, or perhaps they've bought into the infighting and rhetoric by some cold-process and hot-process soap-makers, who claim M&P soaps aren't "real". Whatever the reason, it's good to know that this one little "tell"...the sweating...can tell the truth that they won't.

M&P soaps don't always sweat...as I said at the beginning, I seldom get sweat on mine...but they CAN sweat, and that's one easy way to tell if the soap someone's offering you as "made from scratch" is indeed, cold or hot processed soap...or melt-and-pour soap. If it sweats...it's M&P.

Know the difference, and insist on getting what you pay for. If someone will lie to you about this...what else are they lying about? Neither made-from-scratch nor M&P soaps are necessarily inferior as a whole. Both processes can include amazing soaps...and cheap, shabbily made soaps. This one tip is just to help customers know a little about the products in which they're interested.