Written by Elizabeth Mika
Founder and Maker, Bramble & Bear™ Soap Co.
You pick up a bar from the store. It looks like soap, lathers like soap, and may even say “soap” on the package.
But what actually makes soap, soap?
That little bar in your shower may have a more interesting story than you think.
Traditional soap is made when oils or fats react with an alkali, such as lye, in a process called saponification. That reaction creates soap. But walk down the personal-care aisle and you’ll also see names like “beauty bar,” “cleansing bar,” and “body bar.” Some of these products clean mainly with manufactured cleansing ingredients rather than traditional soap.
Here’s where it gets interesting: the FDA has a specific regulatory definition of soap. Some products we commonly think of as soap do not fit that definition, even though the word “soap” may still appear in their marketing.
So the name on the front of the package doesn’t always tell you how the bar was made.
And what about “triple milled”? It sounds rather grand—almost as if the soap went to finishing school—but it simply describes a manufacturing process. The material is mechanically refined, blended, compressed, and formed into bars. The term tells you something about how the bar was processed. It does not, by itself, tell you whether a product is more natural, gentler, or better for your skin.
Two bars can look almost identical and be made very differently.
So next time a package catches your eye, turn it around.
The ingredient list can give you clues about what you’re buying. You don’t need to memorize complicated names or become a soap expert. Just knowing that not every bar is made the same way is a good place to start.
At Bramble & Bear, our bars are made as traditional soap. Plant oils and butters are combined with sodium hydroxide and transformed through saponification into soap. It is the same fundamental soapmaking process that has been used for generations, interpreted in our own small-batch formulas.
So yes—Bramble & Bear really is soap.
Once you know, you know.
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