How We Make Soap continued

We were ready to go with all natural vegetable oils when we learned of the wonderful properties of emu oil through a local source in southern Oregon, and decided that its unique contributions warranted an exception. While our products are not organic or all vegetable, they are made from the highest quality natural ingredients available, with no artificial ingredients. Our commitment to quality is one of the foundations of our business philosophy.

The choices of ingredients today are endless, although many of the more appealing oils are quite expensive. This often requires limiting their use to small amounts added at trace. Oils added at this point do not saponify to the same extent as basic oils in the original mix, but tend to remain in their original form in the soap to act as emollient ingredients in a superfatted soap.

Superfatted soaps can be produced by adding oils at trace, or by using less lye than needed to saponify all the oils in the original mix; and some natural oils contain a high percentage of oils that cannot saponify. No matter how they are produced, superfatted soaps contain unsaponified oils such as glycerin, sweet almond oil, avocado oil, and often more, retaining their moisturizing and other properties for which we selected them. At Hummingbird, one of our main concerns is sensitive, compromised skin. Most of our soaps are superfatted to bring you a mild product that is cleansing but not drying, and rich with nutrients.