The lockdown is almost finished and you are looking forward to going to your favourite Italian restaurant: you know the boss who wants to satisfy his clients and you see the little patterns of leavened dough waiting to know the topping to which they will be filled. Therefore, you ask a double dose of mushrooms on your pizza forestière with, why not, more ham, capers and some anchovies. Four minutes later, you are served!
After this lockdown, you put on weight and you return to the English tailor John & Davis: you choose the cloth, you listen to the tailor’s advice for that jacket you have been dreaming about, and you ask him for a shorter lapel, 2 pockets and 4 silver buttons. The customer is king, 15 days later, the jacket is yours.
Imagine going to the auto show...
Why am I telling you this? Because…
.… Imagine living on the North Coast, that you love the mix of orange and patchouli fragrances that reminds you of your hippie days, that you like your skin to be soft and well hydrated after a bath and that you still have fragile skin that is easily irritated by sea sprays when you take a sea trip… Well, you could speak about that with an artisan soap maker who will offer you a custom-made soap.
Of course, it is possible! The only restriction: between the discussion and the first bubbles in your bath, you will have to wait 6 weeks. This includes the time for a little research, a possible supply, manufacturing and ... 4 to 6 weeks of "maturation" before use.
What? Can we really choose a custom-made soap? But why not?
The only problems are the following: :
The deadline. Now we just have to go to the shop and to choose on the shelf a soap that more or less suits our needs: the form, color, fragrance, skin type… However, we get the soap immediately. If you want a custom-made soap you have to wait around 6 weeks. Nevertheless, you get a soap that corresponds in every way to your wishes.
The availability of soap makers. Most soap makers who have enough work prefer to stick to some receipts that have already demonstrated their effectiveness. The soap makers innovate from time to time according to fashions or demands.
But what does this " custom-made " consist of? quoi consiste ce « sur mesure » ?
But what does this " custom-made " consist of? .
For those who are interested, just take a look at the saponification calculators, usually graciously put online by their creators.
I give you, for example, the calculators of Mendrulandia (Spain) at the following address https://calc.mendrulandia.es/?lg=fr and its counterpart UK Soap Calc at the address http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp.
The main goal of these calculators is to calculate the quantity of soda solution that they have to use according to the different amount of oil used. But not only that!
The calculator also gives you the different fatty acids coming from oils and the characteristics of the finished product. These characteristics are 7 (+ 2) for Mendrulandia and 5 (+ 2) for Soap Calc.
Let’s see those proposed by Mendrulandia: Softness, bubbly, hardness, washing power, holding, drying and solubility with Iodine and the INS.
Each science has its own vocabulary, but the vocabulary of soap making is fortunately similar to everyday language::
By softness, we can understand softness or hydration of the skin after cleansing.
By bubbly, we define the quantity of foam produced by the soap. This characteristic allows to adjust the soap depending on the (calcareous) hardness of the water.
By hardness, we know if the soap will be as hard as a rock or as soft as a young abbey cheese.
By washing power… no I will not explain to you what washing power is.
By holding, we know whether the resulting foam will disappear quickly or be persistent..
By drying, we determine whether the soap will remain rather soft and sticky or will dry quickly after use..
By solubility, we define whether this soap will require long or short handling under water to obtain soapy water..
The two following characteristics do not really interest the customer, but it is useful to know that they are taken into account by the soap maker :
By iodine, we know if a soap is more or less eligible to … rot. We all agree to say that washing with a rotten soap is unpleasant. In effect, and as a reminder, soaps in cold saponification are always surgras. And it is precisely this excess oil, which has therefore not reacted with the soda, which on contact with the air can oxidise and become rancid. The soap maker must create a formula whose iodine value lies between 2 critical values. However, he can minimize the risk by changing the choice of oils or by adding a ... preservative! Preservative?!?!?!? Yes, but in the form of vitamin E, tocopherol, which reduces the risk of oxidation. A totally harmless product and also excellent for the skin.
By INS, it is meant a calculated value according to other characteristics and that gives a general idea of the quality of the soap. I must admit I read many times the formula that gives this value, but I do not really understand what it represents. Nevertheless, if the result lies between the limits, it is good.
Soap Calc uses equivalents of the characteristics of Mendrulandia, with a few nuances::
Cleansing: the cleansing power
Condition: the moisturizing power
Hardness: the hardness of the soap
Bubbly: the foamy power
Creamy: an additional information from "Bubbly" on the fact that the soap will rather be made of a nice big bubbly foam or a rather creamy foam like the one of their famous Guinness beer.
Followed by the 2 last identical values of Iodine and the INS. .
Another difference between the 2 calculators is also due to the fact that the English use units of measurement that require a special gene pool: where Mendrulendia uses an "ideal" value of 50 for each characteristic (below is less sweetness, less bubbles, less...; above 50 is more ...) the soap makers have different tags for each characteristic: Hardness from 29 to 54, Bubbly from 14 to 46 ... Or why make it simple when you can make it complicated!
All this to say that consumers and supermarket customers have for the most part become accustomed to choosing what is offered on the shelves and limiting their real choices most often to the fragrance, colour and price of the product.
It's a pity because the possibilities for custom-made soaps are endless and generally do not cost more if exceptional ingredients are not required.
I will give you the example of my neighbor: she particularly appreciated a soap for its fragrance, its hardness, its high moisturizing power and its beautiful creamy lather.
She wanted “the same” but… with another perfume, softer to make it melt in the bath of her grandchildren and less foamy to use it at the Belgian Coast where the water is very soft, and with an oil that would protect her face more from the sea breeze… It was therefore “enough” to reduce the amount of olive oil, add shea butter, replace coconut oil by castor oil, add calendula maceration, increase the surgras by 8 to 12% and also change the fragrance so that the “same” soap would do its job on the coast.
Similarly, custom made soaps can be adapted to the seasons: more protective and greasier with orange and cinnamon fragrances in winter, milder with floral scents in spring, normal with fruity scents in summer, and with stimulating woody or exotic scents for fall. More or less foamy, more or less washing, more or less moisturizing, with or without scents for toddlers…
It is also possible to create soaps to mark an event such as a birth, a family meeting, a birthday, a wedding… Not only custom-made soaps exist, but their form and packaging can also be personalised (picture, text, logo…).
But always the same constraints, you have to think about it at least 6 weeks before.
… A long time ago my grandmother used a fine scented rice powder to powder her face, a (real) soap, always the same one, which was particularly suitable for her delicate skin, an eau de cologne which followed her around the house, the same one throughout the years ...
We have today an infinite choice of products in the supermarkets. The customer has the choice of his detergent, but he does not make the best use of it by reading the almost incomprehensible INCI information that accompanies each product.
The soap makers produce real high-quality soaps. Nevertheless, the customer is maybe not aware of all the benefits that a custom-made soap has. Indeed, it will really correspond to his expectations.
And yet, only the artisan soap maker is able to provide this ideal product, with a little patience.
The choice and the lack of time.
Time, always time!