What Goes Into It?

I love listening to commercials that say “Do Not Use this if you are allergic to any ingredients.”  How does a person know what is in a product that they see on television?

Recently, I received a question that I was so glad to examine.  “Did we use phthalate-free essential oils? “

  I knew about parabens, but I hadn’t even thought of a phthalates in my products. Phthalates are used as preservatives, so it is fully possible that are included in some products.  We advertise our soaps as “All Natural.”  How can we do that if we are using adulterated essential oils.  So, I looked at my sources, some of which actually include quality statements in their products, but many others have certifications available.

  What I learned followed what I had previously thought. Essential oils, which are based upon herbs for the most part, are simply distilled or infused plant extracts.  If the essential oils are truly plant extracts, they cannot contain phthalates.  They are extremely concentrated oils that are diluted into a carrier oil, often olive oil. Using “straight essential oils,” is not only extremely expensive, it is dangerous in many cases. 

  If a product is fragrance oil, or a blend of essential oil and fragrance oil, they may contain phthalates, or other chemicals.  It will not be found in Surfing Goat Soaps.   We strive to make sure that our raw materials are free of artificial ingredients. I do not say they are “chemical free,” because technically everything that is alive is full of chemicals.  (If I digress a bit, “organic” simply means carbon-based, which is true of everything living thing.) 

 I do prefer my essential oils in glass bottles, because plastics sometimes leach, but I’m very picky about where I get my oils, to make sure that is not a problem for us.

  Because we do use our own goat milk, which is a lovely growing medium, we do use paraben-free and phthalate free preservative in our lotion products. Anything that contains water must have some type of preservative in order to keep it safe.

  One of the best things about buying from the “maker,” is that it’s very easy to get an answer to a concern.  Because we work at a small scale, we can be more particular in our ingredients. I admittedly am more a farmer than a business person, but to me, quality is more important than the bottom line.  I want our customers to know they are concern more than our financial gain.

  We do list all the ingredients on our labels. We use English language, not scientific jargon, in our soaps.  For other products we have to use scientific names, but if we can, we translate that so buyers know what they are buying. Education is part of our mission, and ingredients are one way to do that.

  There is more about understanding where education comes into play, I have a link on our Surfing Goat Soaps website to our Hames & Axle Farm website. On that site there is a page about Education, that includes my writings about several topics. One of those topics is about understanding food labels.

  I hope that people purchase from Surfing Goat Soaps because they get their financial value, and their knowledge value enhanced.  If you have any questions, please contact me and I’ll find the answers, if I don’t already know it. You can reach me at farm@hamesaxle.com.