Soap for outdoor activity

To achieve a cleaning effect, you need a substance that reduces the surface tension of water.
Without reducing the surface tension of water, no bridge can form between water and grease.

And that is our goal: we want to remove grease from our skin, our textiles, our dishes, etc., etc.
W/o surfactants this simply is not doable.

That’s the role of a surfactant.

Every soap, shower gel, shampoo, dish soap, laundry detergent, etc., etc., etc., consists of surfactants.

Industrial products are made of MULTIPLE surfactants. Plus a whole lot of other substances to preserve the product (75% of a shower gel or shampoo consists of water).

In addition they contain a whole host of so-called “production and auxiliary materials,” since industrial processes use very large mixers, and certain materials tend to clump together—so so-called flow aids are needed.
Other materials have a terrible smell—so other substances are needed to mask that smell, etc., etc., etc.

And all of this stuff ends up in the water.

Anything which lands in the water is suboptimal.
This applies to aquatic life and wastewater in general.

To say that a soap or cleaning product is eco-friendly and safe to use even in a river or lake, you have to look closely at WHAT kind of surfactant it contains.

A natural soap like mine—this applies to all my shower soaps as well as my hair soaps—is made from plant oils that are converted into a surfactant together with a lye solution (this happens during the soap-making process).
A few natural essential oils are added. And that’s it.

No preservatives. No additional production chemicals and no additives.

A natural soap is 99% biodegradable and, for the reasons mentioned above, also suitable for outdoor activities.

Unlike industrial products
Regardless of whether the product is labeled as “soap” or not.

Unfortunately, that’s the crux of the matter: the product I make is also called soap. Just like, for example a Nivea soap.

But if you take a closer look at the two products, you’ll notice that they are two completely different things.