They can look similar, sit alongside each other on the shelf and both produce a lather. But a solid bar that washes you isn’t automatically soap, and as a soapmaker, that’s a distinction I care about.
Traditional soap is made by combining fats or oils with an alkali, setting off a chemical reaction called saponification. Here at The Soap Mine, I use plant oils and butters to make my soap in small batches, before cutting the bars and leaving them to cure for several weeks. It’s a craft that involves carefully chosen recipes, accurate measurements and a fair bit of patience.
Syndet is short for “synthetic detergent”. These bars use synthetic cleansing ingredients rather than relying on traditional soap for their cleansing action. There are also combination bars, which contain both soap and synthetic detergents. So the difference goes beyond the wording on the wrapper: they’re different formulations.
And this is where I have a bit of a soapmaker’s grumble. “Soap” so often gets used as a catch-all word for anything bar-shaped that you wash with. I’d like the distinction to be clearer, because how a bar is made matters to me, and I think you deserve to know what you’re buying.
How can you tell which one you’re buying?
The easiest way is to have a look at the ingredients. Traditional soap made from saponified oils will commonly include names such as:
- Sodium Olivate
- Sodium Cocoate
- Sodium Palmate
- Sodium Shea Butterate
These are names associated with soap produced from different oils and butters. A syndet bar, on the other hand, may contain cleansing ingredients such as Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate or Sodium Lauroyl Isethionate.
Some bars contain both types of surfactant, so the distinction isn’t always immediately obvious. But once you know what you’re looking for, ingredient lists can tell you quite a lot about how a cleansing bar has been formulated. Do remember though, a long or unfamiliar ingredient name isn’t automatically something to worry about.
I think we’ve established that by now!
My preference is firmly for traditional soap. I love making it, I love using it, and I love the way a carefully formulated recipe becomes a finished bar through that soapmaking process. It’s why I built a business around it.
The Soap Mine bars are vegan, palm-free, traditionally made soap. There’s thought, skill and a good few weeks of waiting behind every batch.
So yes, I’m particular about what I call soap. It’s my craft. Of course I’m going to care. 😊
Vicki x
