Do you like your clay sprinkled or stirred? Seriously, I’d love to know. I get a lot of questions at shows about the colors in the soaps. One question being: What’s the difference between the speckled color soap and the solid color soap?
All of the colors I use come from cosmetic-grade, natural earth clays. You are probably already using clays in many of your cosmetics and medications, whether you know it or not.
So, what are these clays for, and is there a meaningful difference between solid and speckled clay soap bars?
What Are Natural Clays and What Do They Do?
Clays are very versatile, naturally occurring, fine-grained materials composed of microscopic mineral and organic particles that become soft and sticky when wet and harden when dried.
Clay is used to color, enhance, thicken, bind, or anchor fragrances in many of the cosmetics and medications we use daily. It has many therapeutic topical uses when applied as a poultice or as a mask. So, putting them in soap seemed like a total no-brainer to me!
Speckled vs. Solid Clay Soap Bars
When you see a colored soap in the shop, it will either be speckled or solid….sprinkled or stirred.
Solid Clay Soap Bars
The solid color soaps have clay blended into the loose soap batter before it is cooked. Clay is well blended into the batter until it is smooth and creamy, yielding a uniform color. These solid-color bars are the most mineral-clay-dense, with a higher clay concentration per bar.
They will deliver better nutritional and mineral results for your skin. They also offer the most slip for shaving lather. Moreover, they yield the best results for pulling oils or balancing oils from your skin (depending on the clay of choice).
If you are looking to improve your overall complexion, you want the solid color soaps in whichever clay you wish to try.
Speckled Clay Soap Bars
The speckled bars are colored after the batter has been cooked and is being prepped for scent and molding. The clay is sprinkled on top of the batter, stirred just 3 or 4 times, and then plopped into molds.
The goal is to add a bit of interesting color and character to the soap bar, so the clay content in sprinkled bars is only a fraction of the amount of clay in the solid bars.
It is fun to observe what each clay does in the soap! Some will be very opaque and noticeable, others turn wispy, harder to see.
In a Nutshell
Clays are fascinating (well, to me at least). I have a more in-depth article coming soon that explains the function of each clay I use in soap, where it comes from, its chemical and mineral composition, and how it can benefit humans.
But for now, this little blog post answers one of the most frequent questions I get at shows.
