What is Special About Hopi?
Hopi is Maori for soap. At Hopi we make handmade Castile soap with added essential oil that is designed to be gentle on the skin and smell heavenly.
Hopi is gentle on the skin because it is made with olive oil and contains no detergents, additives or preservatives to sensitise your skin. It has a high percentage of glycerine, which is created during the soap making process. Glycerine keeps the skin smooth and moist.
We don’t add many ingredients to Hopi. This means that if you are sensitive to palm oil, coconut, lavender or any other common handmade soap ingredient, you can still use Hopi. After consulting with your doctor, Hopi can also be used instead of the soap substitutes commonly available in New Zealand.
Care of Handmade Soap
Handmade soap is different to the detergent-based soap most common in New Zealand. To make your soap last longer and stay together while in use, it needs to be kept in a place where it can dry out after you have used it. An old-fashioned soap dish with drainage holes or raised bumps is ideal.
What is Handmade Soap?
Lye + Oil/Fat = Soap + Glycerine
Handmade soap is also called Cold Process soap. This soap is made in a chemical reaction that happens at 40C. There are two main types of ingredients – the ones that go into making the actual soap (fats and oils) and the ones that are added after the soap-forming chemical reaction to give it added scent or texture (essential oils, rose petals, oats…).
Why Castile Soap?
Castile, named after the region in Spain where it originated, is uses only Olive Oil as the oil/fat ingredient. Olive oil makes a soap that doesn’t drain moisture from the skin and has a very gentle cleaning action. It has been used to make soap for centuries in Europe (based on an ancient Syrian recipe brought back by the Crusaders that used Olive and Laurel oils).
Castile soap doesn’t lather like the detergent-based soaps most common in New Zealand, which can seem strange to some people. This is due to the use of Olive Oil as the oil/fat ingredient and doesn’t affect its’ ability to clean.
Castile soap is often used as a base for baby soap and shampoo.