Is handmade soap biodegradable?
Well that depends on what is in your soap to start with. First, you need to know what makes an item biodegradable. It has to be capable of getting broken down fast under the right conditions. Microorganisms aid this process, and it’s only the materials they can successfully break down that count as biodegradable.
Therefore, some soap is biodegradable and some soap isn’t depending on the ingredients used by the manufacturer. Often liquid soap and mass produced soap tends to have added chemicals in them that cannot be broken down making it hazardous to the environment. These chemicals include phosphates, triclosan, parabens, and sodium lauryl sulfate, to name a few. These chemicals find their way into our water systems and can cause the death of fish and other aquatic life, not to mention health consequences like hormonal disruption and muscle weakness to humans who use these products as well.
Most homemade soap made with natural ingredients are fully biodegradable and safe for the environment because they avoid the chemical phosphates used in mass production. Instead of relying on these antibacterial chemicals to create the soap, homemade and cold-process soap uses the saponification process of lye and animal or plant fats to produce soap, then is scented and coloured naturally. When a company uses chemicals like triclosan to create their soap, these chemicals won’t break down, therefore the environment can definitely do without them too.
At Mama Bare Naturals, we pride ourselves in creating products that are biodegradable and safe for the environment and the wildlife we co-habitat with. Not only are our soap ingredients biodegradable, but we also use natural scents of essential oils over fragrance oils (more chemicals) and natural dyes from nature over synthetic dyes (more chemicals and ingredients that don’t break down). Our soaps are safe for your health and the safe for the environment!