Welcome to Momma Knows Best Handmade Soaps.
Whether you call it handcrafted, handmade, artisan or herbal soap, Momma Knows Best soaps and lotions are made from scratch using wholesome ingredients. Handmade soaps are long lasting, strong scented and provide a smooth creamy lather that will clean and moisturize your skin better.
So we assume you are on our site because you care not just about what you put IN your body but ON your body. We do too. The ingredients in Momma Knows Best handmade soaps and lotions can often be found in your own kitchen.
Our skin is the largest organ in our body. It is like a sponge. It absorbs approx. 60% of everything we smear on it. This is one of the reasons many medicines come in “patch” form. The medical industry knows that many medicines can be absorbed through our skin. Our skin is surprisingly thin and astonishingly complex. Our skin cannot tell the difference between natural and synthetic or harmful and beneficial. It absorbs them all equally. It may absorb harmful chemicals that are present in commercial soaps, shampoos and lotions. The long term effects of synthetic chemicals in commercial skin care products are still unknown.
The popularity of natural handmade soaps and lotions is on the rise and for good reason. Handmade soaps are not just for cleansing. They are an important part in natural skin care. It is an inexpensive, luxurious, healthy treat you can give yourself and your family EVERY day. Herbs and essential oils infuse the skin with enriching nutrients. Handmade soaps are truly BETTER.
Did you know that most commercial soaps you find in the grocery store are really not soap at all but a detergent bar made from synthetic materials, cleansers, stabilizers and animal by-products? These so-called soaps contain processed chemicals and more often than not petroleum-based ingredients that are harsh on your skin and strip it of its natural protective oils and moisture. Soap should never leave your skin feeling “squeaky-clean”. This would mean that your skin has been stripped of all its natural protective oils. Unfortunately, most commercial soaps do just that. Hardeners, whiteners, lather boosters, chemical fragrances (sometimes as many as 500 separate chemical components to create their special scent) are often found in “over the counter” store-bought soap “detergent bars”. When you use soap that is full of chemical additions your body starts to react – dry skin. Good skin care relies on moisture. Our soap retains the naturally occurring glycerin in the soap. Glycerin is a humectant (moisturizer) preventing loss of moisture thereby retaining the skin’s natural moisture. Simply put it pulls moisture from the air towards your skin. Commercial soaps have the glycerin removed so that they can sell it as a separate product. Which increases your chance of dry skin
Why spend $5 for a bar of soap? Your skin is natural. My handmade soap is natural.
When you read the label on a bar of commercial soap they have disguised their ingredients by mashing words together with another ingredient and rebranding it. Such as: Sodium Tallowate which is found in most commercial soaps. What is that???? Lye (sodium hydroxide) has been mixed with tallow (reduced beef fat). They mixed the two ingredients and the two words together and came up with: Sodium Tallowate. So for all you vegans and vegetarians guess what you are trying to clean your body with!!! Yep the stuff you have vowed never to consume.
We offer soaps that are gentle to the skin without the addition of unnecessary chemical fillers. All of our soap ingredients are listed in a user friendly language – you do not need a degree in chemistry to know what is in it.
The name “lye soap” is actually a bit misleading. The finished product actually does not contain lye, but the soap making process uses lye to chemically transform fats into soap. The end result is a soap that cleans naturally, needing no synthetic cleansing agents.
You might be wondering: “If lye is dangerous, isn’t soap made using it harsh?” The short answer is no. As mentioned above, lye soap is made from a chemical reaction (saponification) that involves lye and fats. Careful calculations and measuring ensure that when the reaction is finished, only soap (and no lye) remains.
Our soaps are made using traditional, yet modern cold process techniques. The basic method is still the same as our grandmothers and great-grandmothers used: lye + fats = soap. Unlike generations past, however, we have access to fats and oils that they never did. They made their soaps with the animal fats that they had on hand: tallow from beef or venison, lard from pork. Since we have moved away from our farming community roots, those fats are harder to come by.
I choose oils for my soaps much the same way I choose which oils I cook and bake with.
Coconut oil is one of the most prominent oils in my soaps for many different reasons. One of them is coconut oil gives a hard bar with a cleansing, fluffy lather.
Some of the other oils I use: olive, castor, shea butter, cocoa butter, etc. are chosen for similar reasons. Some provide more conditioning, where others provide better cleaning. It’s the mix of oils I use that makes the soap so nice.
So, welcome to Momma Knows Best Handmade Soaps and Lotions. We hope you enjoy our products as much as we do.