Palm Oil
Palm Oil is a controversial topic, and while some soapers decide to go completely palm free to avoid ethical and sustainable turmoil that can come with supporting the palm industry, we find it to be an incredible oil to use for promoting hard, conditioning soaps at a reasonable price point. Our Palm oil is sourced from Malaysia/Indonesia through Shay and Company and is RSPO certified, meaning it meets or exceeds the requirements dictated by the Roundtable on sustainable palm oil. To read more about their mission, click here.
Rice Bran Oil
Rice Bran Oil is great for dry skin types prone to eczema due to its conditioning properties. Rich in vitamins and minerals, it also assists in soothing skin inflammation, and has antioxidant properties. Our rice bran oil is sourced from Mexico through Shay & Company.
Coconut Oil
Coconut Oil is used in cold process soap to provide adequate cleansing properties and lather. Our shop specifically uses a low melting point 76 degree oil for an abundance of creaminess in your soap. Sourced from Malaysia through Shay & Company.
Olive Oil
Olive derived ingredients come into two categories for Little Shop of Hours, olive oil, and olive pomace. A large portion of olive oil found in the grocery store is not pure olive oil, and therefore can behave erratically during the process of saponification. For this reason, we, as with most soapers, use olive pomace. This oil has less flavor and odor, but a higher fatty acid content than the majority of olive oil used in cooking, providing a more moisturizing bar. We do however use standard grocery olive oil in the creation of our most cost effective line of soaps, and have controls in place for the potential for erratic behavior during saponification.
Shea Butter
Shea butter is possibly one of the best commercially known butters. Its name proliferates every part of the beauty care and personal hygiene market. The benefits of shea butter are numerous, and we use it to round out the conditioning and moisturizing properties in our soaps. It comes in both refined and virgin forms. Virgin shea has a naturally nutty and smoky smell, which we use to affect the scent of certain bars. Refined shea is used to provide all of the beneficial properties of shea butter, without the more powerful odors, and lends wonderfully to bars with delicate scent profiles. Our shea butter is sourced from Burkina Faso, through Shay & Company.
Cocoa Butter
Cocoa butter has a rich chocolate aroma that lends well to heavier scented bars. As with all butters, cocoa butter provides hardening and moisturizing properties in soap. Cocoa butter in soaps produced by Little Shop of Hours LLC is either deodorized or natural depending on scent and color profile necessary for the bar! Our deodorized and natural cocoa butter is sourced from Peru through Shay & Company.
Castor Oil
Castor Oil is the miracle soaping ingredient. It provides the abundant bubbles and creamy lather present in almost all modern soap. Castor oil directly influences the bubble threshold when soap is properly agitated. The more castor, the more bubbles!
Sodium Lactate
Sodium Lactate is a salt produced by the fermentation of a sugar source. Often found in an aqueous solution, it assists in the demolding process of cold process soap, helps create a harder bar, and is important for bar smoothness.
Sugar
At Little Shop of Hours, we have quite the sweet tooth, and after using our bar, we think you will too! A little sugar in our soap recipe does wonders for our lather, and is our all natural solution to increase the amount and size of our bubbles. The sugar in our bar is fully dissolved.
Sunflower Oil
Our other highly moisturizing ingredient is sunflower oil! The addition of sunflower oil to our soaps supplies mostly the same properties as olive oil, but helps the soap go the extra mile for those who are prone to dry skin.
Mango Butter
Mango butter provides vitamin C to the skin, and helps assist in the production of collagen. This butter provides no scent to our bars, but is a heavy duty conditioner and moisturizer. Mango butter used in our soap is deodorized, and sourced from India through Shay & Company.