Ingredients are Important

Our skin weathers a daily battle to protect us from harsh elements. It is working to keep the bad stuff out while also serving as an 'elimination' organ in the body. Many toxins are released or eliminated through the skin. Diligence in supporting this important organ serves our body and health well!

Too many products are marketed by countless companies selling so-called 'solutions' to a particular skin condition. Unfortunately, these claims are often false. Every person is unique, so there are 8 billion and counting different possible bodies each with their own circumstances e.g., one person is deathly allergic to bee stings and another is not the least bit bothered by them. One person is celiac while another can consumes all things gluten. One balds at an early age while another lives to a hundred with a full head of hair. There is no one size fits all when it comes to skin health or overall health.

So soap is NOT a solution or cure all to any (fill-in-the-blank) skin condition. That being said, we believe that people who reduce the amount of exposure they have with harsh chemicals, irritants and allergens benefit themselves. Is it not reasonable to conclude that if we breathe cleaner air, we will fair better than if we breathe polluted air? It's just common sense.

The daily elements we face in our lives may not be easily avoided. If we live in a big city, air pollution is a reality and one that is not easily changeable. However, small improvements to our overall environment and being selective about the products we use or take into our bodies can reduce our exposure to less desirable elements. A few ideas...

• Improve water quality using a water filtration system. It's no secret bottled water is expensive and contributes heavily to pollution in the oceans. Instead invest in a stainless steel or glass water bottle and make your own clean water with a gravity filtration system. We use a Berkey in our home but there are others. Do a bit of research and find one that works for your needs and budget.
• Improve air quality in your space by using an air filtration system. Too expensive?  Search for "Corsi-Rosenthal Box" and build your own! This clever DIY air cleaner can out perform many of the pricey models found in stores. Costco sells a 3M Filtrete 4-pack (MPR 2500 has a rating of MERV 14) for about $45. We built a couple of these and they work wonders to improve air quality in the home. If you like 'white noise' when sleeping, instead of a fan or app use a Corsi-Rosenthal Box and enjoy cleaner air while sleeping - white noise included. Not the DIY type? There are companies that sell fully built units.
• Improve diet with a schedule modification. How? Much of the daily diet is driven by the clock. Often, we don't have time to make healthy meals, so we take the easy and fast path which is usually a lower quality but highly processed fast food. Invest in better health (buy the time out by turning off the TV or taking a break from scrolling social media) by taking an hour or two each week to prepare in advance healthy food to enjoy during the rest of the week. Get plenty of great ideas from YouTube. We personally like actress Laura Prepon and her tips but there are many other folks offering amazing ideas for food prep!
• Invest in sleep by turning off the noise. An hour before bedtime, step away from devices and screens. Use sleep mode on the phone or otherwise disable notifications. Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day. During sleep our bodies heal and rejuvenate. We get more done during our waking hours when we get good sleep.
• Scrutinize the ingredients in the products you use on or take into your body. Many of the consumables we use each day are manufactured by big corporations which are primarily driven by profit and cater to the demands of their investors at the expense of their customer base. So don't trust them to 'do the right thing'. They probably won't!

Regarding soap...

We started making soap because of eczema. Our co-founder Deb suffered eczema on her feet around the age of 12. Later in her twenties, it began to manifest on her hands. She had flare-ups that lasted months at a time. This condition continued until the pandemic and then it got really bad! During the pandemic she had a flare-up of eczema that lasted the entire pandemic and even the months following it. She was desperate to address this condition and nothing seemed to work. She eventually discovered that the flare-ups were evidently triggered and exacerbated by hand sanitizers which, as you remember, were everywhere and in heavy use during the pandemic.

So she started taking a much more mindful approach to her hand cleaning. While trying a plethora of 'natural' soaps, she came to the conclusion she needed to make her own since most hand made soaps add fragrance or colorants. Thus 'less' soap was born.

Again, as we mentioned, our soap doesn't cure anything. However, for our co-founder Deb, it was the right type of soap that didn't trigger or exacerbate her eczema.

Here are the ingredients we use in our original formula of less soap. All the oils are saponified using a caustic soda or lye.