Soap is formed from a chemical reaction between oils and lye. The reaction is called saponification. (This is how our soaps are made anyway). It’s then left to set for about a few weeks. Our soaps are made such that the lye mostly exhausted. This is good.

HOWEVER…Commercial soap is usually produced from tallow (beef fat) and other fats (waste fat), waste cooking oil etc plus a variety of synthetic chemicals which are added to produce the desired lather, texture and hardness of the finished bar. The mixture is boiled at high temperatures with the caustic solution until the process of saponification takes place. The soap base is then extruded into noodles. Colour and synthetic smells are then added to the soap noodles, mixed and then compressed into a nice shiny bar that looks so nice and uniform in a nice wrapper. Of course, in the squishing process, more additives are needed to prevent the soap from sticking to the rollers of the milling machine. And VOILA! Your have nice cheap rubbish soap. Of course, this soap costs next to nothing to make but, with all the marketing and beautiful models to brainwash you into thinking it’s the best of the best, the cost goes up.

A side product of the saponification process is glycerine. During the manufacture of commercial soaps, glycerine is either washed away with the other waste products, or it is separated out(by a process called salting) and sold on to the cosmetics, food or explosives industries. This is an enormous loss to the user of the soap – glycerine is a natural moisturiser for the skin, and the removal of glycerine during the commercial production of soap is one of the reasons why commercial soaps can often be so drying to the skin… besides the fact that it’s loaded with chemicals you DO NOT want on your skin.

In our cold-process soap making method, (a painfully slow but, the right way to do it) the basic mixture of vegetable butters, oils, milk, lye, water, natural nutrients, essential or phthalate free certified fragrance oils are used. Only gentle warming is used to melt the butters and oils at the start of the process and glycerine is left in the soap as the saponification reaction takes place. This means that our handmade soaps retain all the glycerine, making for a superior and gentle bar of soap.

A lot of people ask us what the difference is between Saadia Organics and the ones they see in their hair salon, for example. Well, for starters, our product is 100% pure unadulterated Argan Oil. Anything you’ll see in a hair salon will most likely have other ingredients besides “Argania spinosa kernel oil” on the label.

Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. We all need shampoo, for example, and it doesn’t hurt to use one with a bit of Argan Oil in it. (Just try to choose one that is sulphate free.) Like our Seaweed Bath Company products.

Saadia Organics is like freshly squeezed Orange Juice. Pure.  Actually, we don’t know much about how the various types of orange juice are manufactured. But we do know a fair bit about how how Argan Oil is manufactured. Let’s start with our method. The ‘freshly squeezed’ method, if you will.

First you want the Argan fruit harvested in a gentle way from a goat-free farm. Goats find nothing tastier than Argan fruit and are willing to scale (and break!) the trees in order to do get a yummy mouthful. Then, you want the oil to be produced by hand. Cold pressing using only a stone quern is the way that Berber women have been doing it for centuries. We are happy that Saadia and her team get to do this in privacy (which Moroccan women appreciate) and away from the tourist’s eyes and cameras like in the co-ops.

Other methods use machinery. Some even use chemical solvents to pull the oil out of the kernels. Many brands of “100% Pure Argan Oil” put their oil through a deodorizing process. That process requires heating the oil to very high temperatures for 30-60 minutes. I don’t want to even think about how many nutrients would be lost from the salad I had for dinner last night if I were to heat it to that temperature for an hour! Argan Oil is no different. You want this precious oil in it’s purest, most natural state. Some of its best properties are lost in order to get rid of its natural, light, green, nutty, slightly olive-ish scent.

So we leave our oil alone. And we see the results. Just recently, Joel’s daughter reacted very badly to a cleaning product. (She was determined to help with the dishes and some of the cleaning product was left over in a sponge in the sink.) The rash that developed made her cry. Immediately she asked for some of Grandma Saadia’s Argan Oil to put on it. It soothed her pain immediately. The next morning, angry, dry, scaly, red, eczema-like patches were on her hands. So Joel started putting Argan Oil on several times a day. A few days later, it was like the incident hadn’t even taken place. And we really don’t think too many products could do the magic that Grandma Saadia’s does! Saadia Organics Argan Oil is the REAL DEAL.

Link to : Argan Products

Credit : Saadia Organics

1. The Ingredients – The ingredients list should be very short.  It should just say 100% Argan Oil or 100% Argania Spinosa Kernel Oil.  If it has anything else listed you don’t want it.
2. The bottle – We are wary of Argan Oil sold in clear or plastic bottles. Both can make the oil deteriorate, and most producers of quality Argan Oil wouldn’t put this liquid gold in anything other than a dark coloured glass bottle (amber or cobalt blue, for example).  Aluminium or stainless steel can work well, too.  Light breaks down the oil’s best properties and keeping it inside something dark is the best way to store Argan Oil.
3. The price – Good hand pressed Argan Oil is very difficult to make.  It takes hours of manual labour and that does not come free.  So there is no such thing as cheap Argan Oil.  $10 for 2 ounces/60 ml seems like a bargain, but if it’s just vegetable oil in that bottle, It’s no bargain at all.  You might as well just step into your kitchen and use whatever you’ve got in the cupboard.This is not to say that the most expensive Argan Oil is the best either.  You might just be paying for elaborate packaging and extensive marketing. Sometimes you can find authentic CULINARY Argan Oil at a more economical price. But know that even though this oil will taste amazing, it will not produce the best results on your skin, hair and nails.  Raw, cosmetic-grade oil is from unroasted Argan fruits, and it is much more difficult to extract oil from raw materials.

4. The scent – Strong-smelling Argan Oil that smells absolutely awful should obviously be avoided.  It most likely has gone rancid.  (To ensure freshness, keep the cap or dropper screwed on to your bottle well!)Also, if the Argan Oil you have is very fragrant and so delicious smelling enough that you want to eat it, it very well could be Argan Oil intended for culinary use.  The Argan kernels for this type of oil have been toasted first.  And this means great things for your salad, but it won’t give the results you want on your skin and hair. Argan Oil that smells like absolutely nothing might be suspicious, too.  It could be entirely fake, or at least diluted beyond olfactory recognition.  Or, it could be machine-made and possibly even put through a “deodorization” process.  However, with this said, some of the batches we get (particularly in the spring and summer) have a very, very light aroma.  Fall and winter seem to bring oil that has a deeper natural scent.Genuine, raw, cosmetic-grade Argan Oil can smell unique to the uninitiated nose.  Most say it smells ‘nutty’.  My daughter thinks it smells like popcorn.  I used to think it smelled a bit like a rubber band.  Now I just think it smells like pure luxury.  (But remember, some batches have a lighter scent than others.) If you do get a bottle that is a bit more aromatic, after a couple of days you become used to the scent and know what results the use of this oil brings, so you savour that raw, green, nutty aroma.  Even if you never learn to love that smell, the scent always disappears after a few minutes on your skin, as true Argan Oil absorbs so quickly and beautifully.However, many brands do put their precious Argan Oil through damaging heating and deodorization processes.  If a brand consistently smells like ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, then it is possible that their oil is consistently deodorized.  This process strips the oil not only of any smell it might have had, but also of some of its healing, restorative properties.Sometimes chemical solvents are used to pull the oil from the Argan kernels.  And frequently during the refining process the oil is heated to a very high temperature (up to 375-400 degrees F for 30-60 minutes). But as mentioned, light and heat break down the oil’s best properties, so we firmly believe it’s best to leave this precious oil alone in its most natural state.Again, we stress that the scent of raw, hand-pressed Argan Oil varies from batch to batch.  Sometimes the scent is lighter, sometimes it is a quite a bit more aromatic.  In our experience, the smell of the oil most definitely varies with the seasons.

5. The texture – Argan Oil should be smooth and silky.  Disappearing into your skin.  It should not feel slimy, sticky or watery.  It should not sting.  Even on uncomfortable skin conditions, Argan Oil should bring a soothing effect, not a painful one.
6. The sediment – Authentic Argan Oil often has a tiny bit of sediment at the bottom of the bottle and it appears a bit “cloudy”.  The highly refined or fake oil will not have this sediment and will look very clear.  Saadia Organics Argan Oil does have a few traces of sediment in some of our bottles.  Don’t be alarmed if you do spy a wee bit.  Just let it settle and enjoy knowing that you have the real thing.Our oil is also cloudy and pale yellow in colour.  We do not heat the oil at all, and it is run through a simple strainer, rather than put through a rigorous filtration system.  In our opinion, the less the oil is messed with and manipulated, the better.  When you see clear, bright yellow Argan Oil you know that heat and machines have been involved in the manufacturing process.

7. The results – As they say, “the proof is in the pudding”. Every single day we get people telling us how much they love our product.  Telling us they’ve tossed other things they were using for skin care, hair care and baby care.  Some even have stopped using prescription medications* as our pure, raw Argan Oil works better on their psoriasis or on their child’s eczema.  (Without the cost, potentially questionable ingredients or side effects.)

Credit : Saadia Organics

Link to : Argan Oil

Note : This product may not be suitable for those with nut allergies. Do a patch test too.

ECZEMA

For most people dry skin is not an issue, but for eczema sufferers, dry skin results in intense itch. Usually, due to micro cracks on the skin. This is made worse when the salt in sweat comes in contact with these micro cracks. When salt hits a wound, it hurts. This is exactly the same thing. But, on a different scale. Due to the cracks being so tiny, our brain interprets the “pain” as a large collection of tiny irritations, ie, an itch.

Once the itching starts, the eczema sufferer begins to scratch and the skin surface is damaged. This leads to redness and rawness, sometimes accompanies by bleeding. This could get infected. We have discovered that the key is the itch. If this can be controlled, the sufferer won’t scratch, and the skin will not be damaged. We needed to find a way to break this cycle.

Eczema usually (not always) has an age relationship. For infants, it’s the face, ears and neck. School age children usually have it behind the knees, armpits, inside of the elbows and wrists. Adolescents and adults tend to have it on the hands and feet. Eczema is also, seasonal. It hits hardest in the dry months (not hot humid months but dry months)

Understanding this, SHEA^® started our research. Our goal was to locate a substance that would not irritate the skin when applied, would keep the eczema afflicted area moisturized and promote healing. We identified a particular grade of 100% pure unrefined SHEA butter that has all these properties. It was high in vitamin E that promoted healing, it did not irritate the skin and it kept the skin moisturized without blocking the pores or leaving a sticky after feel. Yes, it took us a very long time to find the perfect type. But we did it.

We did not stop there. We did more research. And we realized that Argan Oil had similar properties. It was logical. Both Shea and Argan come from the same family of trees. We went about searching for a good Argan Oil and we got into talks with Saadia Organics who had 100% pure Argan Oil that was absolutely superb. Also, argan oil had other benefits, amongst them being able to help reduce wrinkles, fine lines and reducing fibrillation of hair, (resulting is smoother, glossier hair).

Now armed with two of the best natural products, SHEA^® is able to help eczema sufferers. We usually recommend argan oil for the face and neck areas and shea butter for other parts of the body. Explore our site and learn more in our knowledge base. Talk to us if you need help. It won’t cost you a thing (except for the phone call), and, don’t keep this info to yourself, refer other eczema sufferers to read this, you will be doing them a great service.

www.shea.com.sg

ps. Eczema sufferers, please do not bathe in very hot water. Your water should be just “not cold”. Also, apply the shea butter or argan oil immediately after you’ve towelled dry after your shower. it helps trap moisture even better. And, please, use the right soap. Your soap should not contain any of the nasty stuff. Our soaps do not contain sulphates, phthalates, EDTA, parabens, or any stuff that would irritate your skin.If you are not sure, speak to us.

Link to : Eczema Products