Why is natural, vegetable soap more expensive than commercial soap?
The short answer to this is that cheap ingedients result in cheap products. High quality vegetable oils cost at least 3 times more than lard (animal fat) on average. Specialty oils, such as Hemp and Shea Butter can cost around 7 times more than lard. Also, Shameless uses pure essential oils, many of which are organic. It takes enormous amounts of plant material to make these precious, therapeutic oils. Fragrance and perfume oils like the ones found in commercial soaps are very cheap synthetics to produce. Synthetic colors, too, are very cheap and naturally colored herbs and plants simply cannot compete in terms of price. Many vegetable soap makers are also using synthetic colors and fragrances, but the oils themselves keep their prices high.
