Ideally, soaps should be made of vegetable oils, scented with essential oils and colored with herbs & plant extracts. Sadly, for commercial reasons, they are made of synthetic ingredients that make happy bubbles, moisten or make the skin smooth but contain carcinogenic chemicals that disrupt hormones, cause reproductive problems or allergies or damage skin.

Thankfully, now several natural, organic & ayurvedic are soaps available in the market – Fab India, Khadi, Down to Earth, Forest Essentials and several local brands amongst them. I was lucky to get some handcrafted natural & organic soaps from Rustic Art. This company uses eco friendly techniques, only vegetables oils and no machinery to create their soaps, shampoos, massage oils etc thereby doing their bit for the environment. Here’s a review of their soaps…

The Look & Feel:

The soaps were neatly packed in cotton fabric and tagged inside with a small instruction slip. They all smelt lovely – lavender, baby soap, facial soap, spa soap and even hand-made paper soap – it was tough to decide which to keep and which to pass on to others for reviewing! On opening, I was happy to see old fashioned soap bars sans bright colours or overwhelming aromas.

Usage:

The instruction mentions that the bar needs to be used sparingly… you need to rub some soap on your hands, and it should last a lot! While I was skeptical about that, it did actually work! In fact, I didn’t need to even pick up the facial soap from the soap dish. I just used wet hands to rub the top of the soap a few times and then used my soapy hands on my face! (Must tell you that I am pretty wary of using soap bars on my face, but trust me, this was better than any face wash!)

My lavender bath soap was mild and comforting, and while it obviously did clean without being abrasive (tried cleaning a 3 year old who came back from a painting session), the best part was that the skin was not dry or oily; it was just right.

The comments from three users of the other soaps were also great – overall the soaps were pleasant, mild and felt ‘safe’.

Positives
The soaps were almost translucent and soft, like holding a bar of moist dove soap bar – but knowing that there is no unhealthy ingredient makes it feel much better! It cleans, it keeps fresh and does what a soap should do! The different types of soaps may have some different contents, but they fact is that they are all gentle for the skin and safe for health. My face was squeaky clean, yet not dry.
The hand-made paper soap, especially useful for journeys and outdoor times, was particularly amazing – smelt great, made lather & cleaned well – a great buy.

Negatives
While the facial soap had no odor, the mild aroma of lavender disappeared after a single bath from my bathing bar; that was a bit disappointing! So my lavender soap was a white odorless home-made bar of soap (which I didn’t really have a problem with, but then the lavender addition was pointless, right?)

The soap bars are priced steeply at Rs. 150+ per bar of soap. Even if they last long and are contain natural & safe ingredients, I would need to think before buying them. The paper soap at Rs. 35 however, is a brilliant buy.

Comments & Rating:

And while the instructions advise using the soap sparingly, it’s very difficult to get past the habit of years of scrubbing soap everywhere and creating lots of lather! I suggest rubbing a loofah on some wet soap and then using it… worked for me!

Rustic Art’s range of soaps, hair oil, massage oil, baby massage oil, aloe gel and handmade paper soap are organic. They also have a Bio laundry range made of non-edible oils & lemon and are 100% bio degradable. They use only certified raw materials.
Rustic art products are available at the NBLC store(New Rajinder Nagar), The Altitude Store (Lodhi Road or Shantiniketan Market) or online at www.rusticart.in.