Making "After Dark" Soap

Here's a little peek behind the scenes at the making of "After Dark" soap:

"After Dark,” a natural vegan soap for hands and body, is scented with a warm and mysterious blend of allspice, anise, cinnamon, patchouli, and orange essential oils. 

It gets its deep purple color from ultramarines and a dash of activated bamboo charcoal powder.  Activated bamboo charcoal, considered one of the most absorbent cosmetic ingredients today, draws out impurities, tightens the appearance of pores, smooths the skin, and reduces inflammation.  Fun Fact: One tablespoon of activated charcoal powder has the same surface areas as two football fields. 

“After Dark” is hand-crafted in small batches with our signature formula, which contains olive oil, coconut oil, castor oil, and shea butter.  Olive oil is one of the most-used fixed oils in soap making.  It makes an extremely mild bar of natural soap.  Coconut oil produces large, fluffy bubbles and is a cleansing powerhouse.  Castor oil acts as a humectant, drawing moisture to the skin, and supports a lush lather.  Shea butter is conditioning and produces a long-lasting bar of soap with a stable lather.

Sodium Hydroxide is used to turn water and these luxurious oils and butters into soap, a process called “saponification.”  Glycerin, a humectant which attracts and retains moisture on the skin, is by-product of the soapmaking process. With hand-crafted soaps, glycerin remains in the soap, resulting in a mild, pure bar.  Additionally, we "superfat" our soaps, meaning that each bar contains more oils and butters than mathematically needed to complete saponification, resulting in bars with excess luxurious oils and butters that did not turn into soap, to improve moisturization, mildness, and lather.