Lye questions- I am very confused

[jenh]

Hi, First off, thank you all for the great info here, I tend to lurk & learn and this is my first post on this board.
I use homemade or clean products for most everything. I ususlly use Dr. Bronner's baby castille bar soap, but have found it a bit drying, so I bought some local handmade soap at the nf store, and it lists sodium hydroxide-lye- as one of the "all natural" ingredients. I have done some searching and found this in the ingredient list of soap recipes posted here also.
Clean House, Clean Planet lists it as "caustic and poisionous".

Not sure what to do, what is the real deal on lye?

I do not use any other cleaning products or body products or anything that contain caustic or poisionous stuff. Vinegar mainly for us.
I have tried the soap and it is very nice and non-drying, but will not use it with my family if lye is a bad thing.

Soryy for the long winded post ( see why I lurk!)
Thanks so much in advance!

[MidwifeErika]

Here is the real deal on lye: no lye= no soap.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to make soap without lye. The fats have to be mixed with a caustic to create the soap. It used to be done in the old days with wood ash, but I don't know anyone who currently does it that way.... pretty unpredictable way. When the lye is mixed with the fats, the molecules do a little dance together and make the soap (they saponify). This leaves NO spare lye molecules behind. Most soapmakers actually superfat, which means they use more fats (I use 6% more than what I would need) to ensure a product that in no way is lye heavy and instead has extra moisture for your skin. Raw soap is then cured for 4+ weeks to be sure that the whole process is complete and you are left with a very gentle substance.
Don't let lye in soap scare you. Technically it doesn't even have to be listed as an ingredient because no lye remains in the finished product (as it has saponified), so that is why you will see it listed on some ingredients and not others. Raw lye is a more frightening thing and can cause harm if handled improperly, but once in soap it is all good.

[amcal]

Don't be scared of lye. It's all around you. It's used to make paper and it's in many of the foods we eat - pretzels being one of them. On it's own, it is caustic and poisonous and caution must be used when working with sodium hydroxide (lye) in it's raw form. However, once it's used to make soap or other products, the chemical composition changes and it is no longer a caustic substance. Here is some good info:

"The main uses of sodium hydroxide are in chemical manufacturing (pH control, acid neutralization, off-gas scrubbing and catalyst); pulp and paper manufacturing; in petroleum and natural gas industry (removing acidic contaminants in oil and gas processing); manufacture of soap and detergents and other cleaning products; and cellulosics, such as rayon, cellophane and cellulose ethers; cotton mercerizing and scouring. Other uses include water treatment, food processing, flue-gas scrubbing, mining, glass making, textile processing, refining vegetable oils, rubber reclamation, metal processing, aluminum processing, metal degreasing, adhesive preparations, paint remover, disinfectant, rubber latex stabilizer and stabilization of sodium hypochlorite"

So basically, back to your question about the lye in soap - you can't make soap without lye. However, once the oils and lye have mixed and saponification has occured, there is no more lye in your soap. It has changed the oils into soap and if done correctly, it's a very mild, gentle soap. As compared to commercial soaps which are chemical detergent bars. I would be more concerned about using commercial soaps on my family - they are full of synthetic detergents and have had all the natural glycerin removed so they tend to be quite harsh. One of the wonderful things about handcrafted soap is that all this luscious glycerin is left in the soap so they are much more mild, gentle and so much better for the skin.

[jenh]

Thank you both for the great info, it has really helped clarify.
I will keep the soaps.
So does that mean that lye is used in soaps like dr. bronners as well?

[MidwifeErika]

Yep, even Doctor Bronner's has it in there. That is why the ingredients are listed as :Saponified oils of blah, blah, blah. Same thing, different wording than listing the lye seperately. Every single soap ever created will have had caustic used to produce it. In bar soap it is Sodium Hydroxide and in liquid it is Potassium Hydroxide.

If a soapmaker ever tries to tell you that their product did not take lye to make, they are either telling you a lie or don't understand their own product (some people make soaps by buying premade soap base and doing their thing with it such as scenting and shaping and coloring and some of these people may not realize since they didn't make it from scratch).

[jenh]

Thanks again!