Some of you might be wondering, "Lye? Isn’t lye dangerous? Won’t it harm my skin?”
First - all actual soap is made with lye. No lye, no soap. (A lot of "soap products" in the stores are actually detergent. If you look at the labels, they are not called "soap". They are called "hand wash" or "body cleanser" or some such thing.)
This could become a chemistry lesson, but to make it short - soap is made from lye, fats and liquid. When the lye mixes with the fats and liquid, some kind of chemical reaction goes on, and the lye and fats change into soap and glycerin. In the process, the lye is all used up. Even though lye is used to make the soap, there is no lye left in the soap at all.
This is why soap made with lye is not dangerous, and it definitely won’t hurt your skin.
Let's talk about Oxides - that sounds like some kind of weird chemical, doesn't it?
Oxides (or metal oxides) are natural substances which make up most of the earth's crust; they're formed when metal reacts with oxygen. Different oxides make different colours.
For instance, everyone is familiar with rust - another name for rust is "iron oxide. Perhaps you've seen the green roofs on cathedrals - that's copper oxide. So the red, green, pink and yellow powders that we use are all from these natural metal oxides.
