FAQs

Little Soap Company is proud to be Cruelty Free.

All our products are certified as not tested on animals under the Cruelty Free International Leaping Bunny Programme (CRILBP), the international gold standard for products that are free from animal testing. We adhere to a fixed cut-off date policy and proactively monitor our suppliers to ensure that our products continue to adhere to the Leaping Bunny criteria. Our supplier monitoring system is also open to independent audit.

More information on Cruelty Free International is available here.

Yes. All carry the Vegan Society trademark which is the authentic international vegan standard. Products must pass the criteria to be eligible for registration. A dedicated and experienced team check each individual product application against the criteria, and query any potential inclusion of animal ingredients, including those not present in the final product. Working with manufacturers, audits for products at high-risk of cross contamination with animal ingredients are carried out to give vegan consumers further reassurance. We renew the registration of each product annually to ensure information is accurate and up to date.

You can check our registration here by typing Little Soap Company in as the brand name.

Yes. We are passionate about keeping Britain manufacturing.

The simple answer is so the soap can breathe!

The natural glycerine we leave in all our bars means the soap can sweat in extreme temperatures. This sweat could make the natural dyes we use in our packaging run. The slightly bigger packaging solves this potential issue.

Let’s start with washing. Take your brand new bar and pop it on a soap dish by the sink (or in the shower), run some warm water over your hands. Move your hands over to the dish and pick up the soap and rub your hands around it to create a good lather and place the soap back on the dish. Rub your hands for two minutes, ensuring you get between your fingers and on the backs of your hands as well as your palms. After two minutes, simply rinse the lather under warm water and dry your hands.

Your bar will last way longer if you minimise its time under running water from taps and, especially, power showers. Simply store it on a soap dish, if you have one, or use the side of your bath or basin if not.

Dishes can be bought exclusively on the website <link to be added when live as will need to edit link once live> and travel tins for rectangular and round bars too! <link to tin landing page / link to be added when live as will need to edit link once live>

Our Naturals Olive Oil and Organic Sensitive Bar both are totally unfragranced. We know they only have the purest ingredients, but we wanted to get them fully tested so we can claim safe for sensitive skin on pack.

For both bars the report stated “Single application under occlusive patch of the Investigational Product (IP) under the control of a dermatologist induced no reaction of irritation and has a very good skin compatibility”

And we can proudly make the following claims that both bars are:

• Dermatologically tested
• Dermatologically approved
• Clinically tested
• Safe for skin
• Suitable for Sensitive skin

We’ve formulated our recipes so they can be sold nationally, and so all our soaps are good for anywhere – hard or soft.

While none of our products are sold as allergy-free, any of our unperfumed bars are probably the best place to start for those with really sensitive skin.
The range includes:

• Organic Unperfumed Soap for Sensitive Skin with Oatmeal
• Olive Oil Soap
• Avocado Oil Soap

In addition to the above, our Eco Warrior Baby & Child Edit Hair & Body Bars feature a gentle, allergen-free fragrance, making them ideal for sensitive skin. Dermatologist and paediatrician approved, soap-free and pH balanced formulated to be safe and gentle on skin. Suitable for the whole family, they offer a convenient shampoo and body wash alternative to liquid products.

• Gently Cleansing Hair & Body Bar
• Relaxing Bedtime Hair & Body Bar

Our bars use a mix of palm oils (we only use sustainably sourced, RSPO certified palm oil), sunflower oils, coconut oils and rapeseed oils. If you have any specific allergies you are concerned about, please contact us.

We do use nut oils in some of our products. They are always clearly labelled in the ingredients.

Nut allergies are caused by a certain protein in the nut flesh and not the shell of the nut.

Our factories produce the occasional soap containing walnut shells, apricot shells along with olive and apricot oils. They make every effort to ensure the potential for cross contamination is mitigated with a strict cleaning and isolation policy.

A lot of our bars do include coconut in their formulations due to its hydrating qualities. However, we do have a few bars which are free from coconut-derived ingredients:

• Naturals Citrus & Lavender
• Natural Sweet Orange
• Naturals Lemon Zest
• Naturals Peppermint & Eucalyptus
• Eco Warrior Charcoal Bar
• Eco Warrior Exfoliating Bar
• Naturals Avocado Oil Soap Bar

The only ingredient in our soaps which may contain anything derived from corn is the citric acid. This citric acid is fermented from carbohydrates of multiple sources. By far the most predominant carbohydrate is from sugar beet and molasses, but we cannot rule out the possibility one of these sources may well be corn. However, the process of manufacturing citric acid is so refined and efficient that there should be no trace of the source carbohydrate in the finished citric acid.

If you want to avoid any potential risk, our Olive Oil Bar and Eco Warrior Sensitive Facial Bar do not contain any citric acid in their recipes.

All REAL soap is made with lye (also known as NaOH/sodium hydroxide/caustic soda) mixed with fat or oils (such as coconut, palm, olive, etc). Any soap product made without lye is not ‘soap’, it is detergent (big difference – proper soap nourishes the skin, detergent strips it and gives you that tight feeling afterwards!).

Once the chemical reaction of making soap, called saponification, is complete, the lye and oil molecules have combined and chemically changed into soap and this magical thing called glycerin appears.

Providing all the ingredients have been measured correctly (we have tight Quality Control, don’t worry and legally all our recipes have to be safety assessed and stability tested) all of the lye is used up in the saponification process to turn oil into soap meaning there is no lye present in the finished bars of soap.

All our soap bars are made with lye even though the words “sodium hydroxide” or “lye” do not appear on the labels.

Once saponified, the ingredients are listed as such so we can see which oils have been used in the process:

• sodium cocoate: the generic name for the mixture of coconut oil with sodium hydroxide (lye).
• sodium palmate: the generic name for the mixture of palm oil with sodium hydroxide (lye).
• sodium palm kernelate: the generic name for the mixture of palm kernel oil with sodium hydroxide (lye).
• sodium olivate: the generic name for the mixture of olive oil with sodium hydroxide (lye).

All REAL soap is made with lye (also known as NaOH/sodium hydroxide/caustic soda) mixed with fat or oils (such as coconut, palm, olive, etc). Any soap product made without lye is not ‘soap’, it is detergent (big difference – proper soap nourishes the skin, detergent strips it and gives you that tight feeling afterwards!).

Once the chemical reaction of making soap, called saponification, is complete, the lye and oil molecules have combined and chemically changed into soap and this magical thing called glycerine appears.

In our view this question is loaded and over-rated and often leads to misleading answers! And is more relevant to ‘chemical’ wash bars/liquids but not to natural soap like ours.

Soap should generally be between pH 9 and 10 for effective cleaning, though this is higher than the skin's natural pH of around 5.5. For personal care, soaps with a ‘physiological pH’ (between 4.5 and 6.5) are better for maintaining the skin's protective barrier and preventing irritation.. – these pH levels fit nicely with our bar pH listed below..

Your body’s pH balance is the level of acids and bases in your blood at which your body functions best. Many factors (including gender, age, diet and health) play a part in each person’s pH level.

In other words, pH balance differs from person to person. Soaps made with natural ingredients tend to have a slightly higher pH. But, we believe a natural soap (full of oils and natural glycerine) is more gentle than a synthetic detergent cleansing bar, which may be promoted as being “pH balanced”. We are sceptical about claims of being pH balanced.

That said, many agree Soap should generally be between pH 9 and 10 for effective cleaning, though this is higher than the skin's natural pH of around 5.5. For personal care, soaps with a ‘physiological pH’ (between 4.5 and 6.5) are better for maintaining the skin's protective barrier and preventing irritation.

If you are worried about your skin, please consider consulting a dermatologist and show them our bars and ingredients – we often recommend the following bars for even the most sensitive skin as the bars naturally moisturise -

• Our shampoo & baby bars have a pH of 5.6 – 6.5
• Our Olive bar, Naturals bars and Eco Warrior body bars have a pH of 9.5 – 10.5
• Our Organic bars have a pH of 10 - 10.5

If you accidentally get soap in eyes, simply rinse gently with lukewarm water for 15-20 minutes.

If accidentally swallowed – check with the National Poisons Information Service here. All our products are registered with them.

In very rare cases, if skin irritation has occurred; rinse skin with water for 15-20 minutes. If you’re worried about an urgent medical concern, call 111 and speak to a fully trained adviser. For less urgent health needs, contact your GP or local pharmacist and take the product packaging with you which detail the ingredients.

‘Fragrance’ has become a euphemism for the nearly 4,000 or so different chemical ingredients that are used in many ‘scented’ products. Most ‘fragrances’ are not natural, they’re synthetic, petroleum-based chemicals. Their chemical structure tries to mimic scents found in nature. Emma founded Little Soap Company not only because she wanted real natural soap to be part of the everyday supermarket shop but also because she found the smells in the soap aisles so aversive that she wanted to bring out soap that used pure essential oils for those discerning customers (and perhaps also the autistic customers) like her. 

Where we can we choose to use pure plant-based essential oils or a blend of them.

We are as transparent on our site as we are on our packaging. We are very proud of all our ingredients being of the highest quality, non-toxic and biodegradable. Our soap doesn’t impact marine life and it’s just as safe to use it to wash in a jungle. Every bar is proper soap (not detergent). No nasties.

Quite simply, we stand by everything we say on the ingredients and safety of our products.

In the UK, there are many different ‘standards’ between certification boards, it is easy to become confused. We aim to be as clear as possible by stating the percentage of all ingredients on all our products. We’re obliged to use the Latin name in the ingredient list but we also include the ‘common’/English name for clarity.

Natural

‘Natural’ has become a misused and misleading word in the beauty industry. To be considered a ‘natural beauty product’ cosmetics and toiletries may contain as little as one percent naturally-grown ingredients and may or may not contain organically-grown ingredients. We use this term to mean we only use naturally-derived soap and do not add chemicals such as SLS, detergents, alcohol, parabens, sorbates, silicones, sulphates or preservatives to our soaps.

When Emma created Little Soap Company (LSC) in 2008, she was aware of the controversy over the use of palm oil in a wide range of consumer products. Because of this, and her genuine passion about and commitment to the environment, she heavily researched the topic. From day one, LSC has carefully sourced all its oils from sustainable organic plantations and, in the case of palm oil, from accredited RSPO-certified sustainable plantations.

Yes, this adds to the cost of the production of our soap.

Emma believes palm is the most sustainable option available because replacing palm in the supply chain would need around eight times the amount of farming land.’ It simply shifts the issue to another crop.

On this basis, we believe truly sustainable palm oil should be supported while working to expose the dreadful practices that have and are taking place in certain parts of the world.

Using sustainable palm also means our soap is as wholesome and as rich and lathery as we believe is possible, without the unnecessary use of sodium lauryl sulphate.

For more information, please see our palm oil policy here.

We are so proud to have a plastic free supply chain. We use cardboard for our outer cases (no shrink wrap in sight).

When we send out online orders we only use boxes, paper wrap, shredded or zigzag paper and corrugated cardboard, all of which are biodegradable and recyclable.

However, If you receive an order that uncharacteristically contains plastics it is because we upcycle any plastic packaging we receive in the offices from incoming orders because we don’t like to put it into landfill. We simply reuse it and we hope you’ll also reuse it in the same way.

Yes. All our cartons are 100% recyclable and the glossy varnish is made from a recyclable resin made from non-toxic, non-mutagenic, non-carcinogenic and non-reproductive toxic raw materials. They are free of solvents and do not emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) making them environmentally friendly. It is cured with UV light, making it 100% recyclable, along with the card it is printed on.

First it’s important to say that bar soap is the heartbeat of our business. All bar soaps – Eco Warrior, Organic, Naturals and Little Beast Pet Shampoo Bar – are packaged in recycled, recyclable packaging. They have 100 percent plastic-free supply chains. We are proud that bar soap generates around 90 percent of our sales. It is the focus of what we do.

We agree with customers who are worried about the plastic pollution crisis. This is why we have deleted many of our liquid product lines that are packaged in plastic. Our customers’ views on plastic also spurred us on to create our Eco Warrior range and put what is traditionally in liquid form into bars. The range includes a shampoo bar, shave bar, exfoliating bar, facial bar and body bar.

For the few liquid products that we have in our Organic (Hand wash and Bubble Bath), Naturals (Body Wash) and Little Beast ranges (Shampoo and Spritz), we’re proud to partner with Prevented Ocean Plastic™, using 100% post-consumer recycled (PCR)
bottles. This plastic is collected from coastal areas at risk of ocean pollution, cleaned, and recycled into high-quality packaging. By choosing our products, you’re helping to reduce waste, protect marine life, and support communities working to keep our oceans clean.

All our bottles can be recycled. The only packaging that cannot be recycled yet is the pump due to the spring that’s contained within them.

We designed our Eco Warrior Shampoo Bar to be as straight forward as possible! Making it possible for you to make the switch straight from liquid without the faff of a transition period that other shampoo bars need. So there’s no need for rinsing with vinegar and other such things!

Unfortunately, we cannot say exactly how many washes our shampoo bar is supposed to last, as it is totally dependent on how much hair you have and how many times a week you wash it! Despite this, we can reassure you that it will definitely outlive any 500ml bottle of shampoo alternative!

If a bar has split in half this can be caused by the bar having been dropped at some point, whether that was in the bathroom or possibly before you even purchased it, however, it will not affect the longevity of the bar and it is fine to use.

To help keep your shampoo bar in good condition it’s very important to make sure it is allowed to dry out completely in between uses and obviously not let it sit in water after use.  If you keep it on the side in your shower, make sure it’s out of the way of being splashed by the shower.  If you keep it on a soap dish, make sure the dish has good drainage ensuring the bar dries out properly.

To find out more, read our blog on our shampoo bars here.

No, we don’t have an Eco Warrior Conditioner Bar available. We are passionate about making sure our bars work as well as (if not better) than their traditional liquid counterparts and we have not been able to formulate a conditioner bar that consistently produces good results for our customers. We are still formulating and constantly trialling, so we hope to be able to offer something in the future.

All our soap bars have a PAO jar symbol on them (period after opening). As long as the product is kept in a dry place, away from direct sunlight then it should be suitable for use within 24 months of opening.  

This soap dish is made with renewable raw materials such as sugarcane and corn, creating a bio-plastic that is 100% recyclable. It also has a low carbon footprint during its manufacture, helping reduce greenhouse gases.

We also have our new aluminium tins for both our 100/110g bars and 50g mini bars. Designed to be lightweight and durable, each tin includes a removable self-draining tray to help preserve your bars. The ideal travel companion!

Allergens are ingredients that can cause allergies. Most essential oils contain naturally occurring allergens such as limonene, linalool, citral or geraniol. Legally, these need to be declared in the ingredients.

Neurodivergent and sensitive to synthetic or any smells?

Had a tattoo and been told to wash it daily with an unperfumed soap?

Very super sensitive skin?

Both our Naturals Olive Oil and Organic Sensitive Bar <link to both when live> both are totally unfragranced. We know they only have the purest ingredients but we wanted to get them fully tested so we can claim safe for sensitive skin on pack.

For both bars the report stated “Single application under occlusive patch of the Investigational Product (IP) under the control of a dermatologist induced no reaction of irritation and has a very good skin compatibility”

And we can proudly make the following claims that both bars are: 

• Dermatologically tested
• Dermatologically approved
• Clinically tested
• Safe for skin
• Suitable for Sensitive skin

Yes you can! To stock Little Soap Company or Eco Warrior products apply to be a stockist by filling in the form here. Once your account is approved you will be able to view the full wholesale range we have on offer and their prices. Please note we do not allow for resale via Amazon or eBay.

Pentasodium Pentetate is currently not regulated or banned under the UK cosmetic regulation, however it was given a proposed mandatory classification under the GB Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation of CMR 1B in October 2024. This is still in the proposal stage; however it was unlikely that the substance was defended by industry and therefore will eventually be banned. As of September 2025, the substance is not banned in the UK, therefore we are using up old stock before switching to a new formulation for our next production run.

Yes, we have many products that are suitable for anyone with a maize or corn allergy such as our Naturals range, Organics range and some of the products in our Eco Warrior range.

The only products that include this ingredient is our Eco Warrior Shaving Bars, as it is a beneficial ingredient due to its emollient and conditioning properties. It helps provide a protective barrier for the skin during shaving, reducing irritation and razor burn.