Our Ingredients
Our Ingredients
Simple Ingredients. A Reason for Every One.
At Appalachian Surf Soap Co., ingredients aren’t chosen because they’re trendy or because they look good on the front of a label.
We choose ingredients because they have a purpose.
Our handmade soaps, balms, body care, oils, and other products are created with traditional fats and oils, plant-based butters, botanicals, minerals, clays, waxes, and other carefully selected ingredients.
We believe good body care doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes the ingredients people have used for generations are still some of the best ones available.
Here are some of the ingredients you’ll find in our products—and why we use them.
Tallow
What it is:
Tallow is a rendered animal fat traditionally used in soapmaking and skin care.
Why we use it:
Tallow contains a combination of fatty acids, particularly oleic, palmitic, and stearic acids. In soap, it creates a firm, long-lasting bar with a creamy, conditioning lather. In leave-on products, it acts as a rich emollient that helps soften the skin and reduce moisture loss.
Tallow also naturally contains small amounts of fat-soluble compounds, although their amounts vary substantially according to the animal, diet, processing, and refinement.
Sustainability:
We especially appreciate tallow because it can make use of a material from the food supply that might otherwise have limited use or become waste. Using the whole animal more completely fits our philosophy of valuing resources rather than treating them as disposable.
Shea Butter
What it is:
Shea butter comes from the kernels of the African shea tree.
Why we use it:
Rich in stearic and oleic fatty acids, shea butter is a wonderful emollient. It helps soften dry-feeling skin and creates a protective layer that helps slow moisture loss.
Shea also contains an unsaponifiable fraction with naturally occurring compounds including phytosterols and tocopherols.
We use shea butter in products where we want richness, cushion, and lasting moisture.
Sustainability:
Shea trees are long-lived native trees of the African savanna, and the shea trade provides an important source of income in many producing communities. Responsible sourcing and supply-chain practices matter enormously, so we believe the source of shea is just as important as the ingredient itself.
Olive Oil
Olive oil has been used on the body for thousands of years.
It is particularly rich in oleic acid and also contains naturally occurring compounds such as squalene, tocopherols, and polyphenols, with exact amounts depending on the oil and processing.
In soap, olive oil contributes a mild, conditioning character and helps create the kind of traditional bar that becomes beautifully gentle with proper formulation and curing.
In leave-on formulations, olive oil acts primarily as an emollient.
Why we love it: simple, traditional, useful, and incredibly versatile.
Castor Oil
Castor oil is pressed from the seeds of the castor plant and is unusual among common cosmetic oils because it is particularly rich in ricinoleic acid.
For a soapmaker, castor oil is a little workhorse.
It helps support and stabilize lather, giving soap that dense, satisfying foam we love. In body-care formulations, it provides emollience and a rich texture.
A relatively small amount can make a noticeable difference in a formula—which is exactly the kind of ingredient we appreciate.
Lard
Yes, lard.
Long before shelves were filled with bottles of synthetic body wash, people made beautiful soap from the fats they already had available.
Lard is rich in fatty acids including oleic, palmitic, and stearic acids. In cold-process soap, it creates a hard, long-lasting bar with a wonderfully creamy, gentle-feeling lather.
Sustainability:
Like tallow, lard can be a practical example of whole-resource use. When sourced as a co-product of the existing food system, turning it into useful soap gives that material another purpose.
Old-fashioned doesn’t always mean outdated.
Sometimes it means we figured something out a long time ago.
Jojoba Oil
Despite its name, jojoba oil is technically a liquid wax, composed largely of wax esters.
That unusual structure gives jojoba its characteristic silky feel and excellent oxidative stability.
We use jojoba when we want lightweight conditioning without an excessively heavy or greasy finish. It works beautifully in beard care, body oils, balms, and other leave-on products.
Jojoba is also grown in relatively dry climates, which makes it an interesting crop from a sustainability standpoint, although—as with every agricultural ingredient—the environmental impact depends on how and where it is produced.
Rosehip Oil
Rosehip oil is pressed from the seeds or fruit of wild rose species.
It naturally contains fatty acids including linoleic and alpha-linolenic acids, along with naturally occurring carotenoids and other plant compounds depending on the variety and processing.
Its fatty-acid profile makes rosehip especially appealing in facial and body oils designed to soften and condition dry-feeling skin.
Rather than calling it a miracle oil, we prefer to appreciate it for what it is: a beautifully complex botanical oil.
The Herbs We Love
Plants have been part of traditional body care for centuries.
We use herbs because of their botanical constituents, traditional uses, sensory qualities, and the characteristics they can contribute when properly infused or formulated.
It’s important to distinguish traditional herbal use from medical treatment. Our botanical body-care products are intended to cleanse, moisturize, condition, and care for the skin—not diagnose or treat disease.
Calendula
One of our favorite skin-care botanicals.
Calendula flowers contain naturally occurring plant compounds including flavonoids, carotenoids, and triterpenoids.
Calendula has a long history of topical use, which is why you’ll frequently find it infused into traditional salves, oils, and balms.
We love calendula-infused oils in products intended for dry, hardworking, weather-exposed skin.
Chamomile
Chamomile is much more than a bedtime tea.
The flowers contain naturally occurring compounds including flavonoids and terpenoids. Depending on the species and preparation, chamomile-derived ingredients may also contain compounds such as bisabolol and apigenin.
We use chamomile for its long history in gentle botanical skin care and its beautifully understated character.
Lavender
Lavender may be one of the most recognizable herbs in traditional body care.
Its aromatic components include linalool and linalyl acetate, although composition varies by species, harvest, and extraction method.
Lavender can be used as an infused botanical or as an essential oil depending on the product.
And while we love lavender, “natural” doesn’t mean allergen-free. Essential oils are powerful aromatic materials, which is why proper formulation and usage rates matter.
Yarrow
Yarrow has a very long history of traditional botanical use.
The plant contains a variety of naturally occurring compounds, including flavonoids and other phytochemicals.
We use yarrow as part of our herbal approach to body care—particularly in botanical infusions—rather than treating it as a pharmaceutical ingredient.
Comfrey
Comfrey has historically been used in topical herbal preparations and contains naturally occurring compounds including allantoin, along with mucilage and other plant constituents.
We use comfrey selectively in topical formulations.
Because comfrey also naturally contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, responsible formulation and appropriate external use are important. More isn’t automatically better simply because something comes from a plant.
That’s part of our ingredient philosophy too.
Goat Milk
Goat milk makes an extraordinary traditional soap ingredient.
It naturally contains fats, proteins, sugars, minerals, and lactic acid. When incorporated into handcrafted soap, its sugars can contribute to lather while its fats contribute to the overall richness of the finished bar.
Milk naturally contains nutrients such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and vitamins, although soapmaking is a chemical process and we don’t pretend that a finished bar of soap functions as a vitamin supplement for your skin.
What we can say is much simpler:
Goat milk makes a beautifully creamy bar of soap.
And that’s reason enough for us to use it.
Clays
We love working with naturally occurring mineral clays.
Depending on the product, you may find ingredients such as:
Kaolin • Bentonite • Rhassoul • French Pink Clay • Moroccan Red Clay
Clays contain different combinations of naturally occurring minerals, including compounds containing silica, aluminum, magnesium, calcium, iron, and other elements, depending on their geological origin.
In soap and body products, clays can add slip, texture, color, and absorbent properties.
Their beautiful colors often come straight from their mineral composition rather than synthetic dyes.
No two clays are exactly alike—and we like it that way.
Zinc
Zinc is an essential mineral with important biological functions in the human body.
In topical products, however, the function depends heavily on the specific zinc compound being used.
For example, zinc oxide is widely used in skin-protectant and sunscreen formulations, while other zinc compounds serve different cosmetic purposes.
When we formulate with a mineral ingredient, we care about the actual chemical form and its intended function—not simply the word “zinc” on a label.
Minerals have to be mined or processed from natural resources, so responsible sourcing and efficient use are important parts of their environmental footprint.
Magnesium
Magnesium is another essential mineral used in a wide range of personal-care preparations.
You’ll often find magnesium chloride in topical sprays, baths, and body-care products.
We use magnesium-containing ingredients for the sensory experience and intended cosmetic use of the individual formulation.
You’ll see enormous claims online about magnesium being absorbed through the skin to correct deficiencies, improve sleep, eliminate pain, or “detox” the body. Evidence for many of those claims is limited, so we don’t need them to explain why we enjoy magnesium body care.
Sometimes a warm bath and a well-made body product can simply feel really good.
Magnesium compounds may come from mineral deposits, seawater, or natural brines, depending on the material and supplier.
Beeswax
Beeswax is one of nature’s great functional ingredients.
Honeybees produce wax to build the structure of the hive. In body care, beeswax gives balms and salves structure while forming a light occlusive layer on the skin that helps reduce moisture loss.
It allows us to turn liquid botanical oils into portable balms and salves without relying entirely on synthetic structuring agents.
Sustainability matters here, too.
Beeswax is a renewable agricultural product, but responsible beekeeping and sourcing practices matter. Supporting healthy managed bee populations and thoughtful apiary practices is more important to us than simply putting a bee on a label.
And More…
Depending on the product and season, you’ll find other ingredients in our formulations, including botanical oils, essential oils, plant infusions, salts, oats, charcoal, naturally derived powders, mineral ingredients, waxes, and carefully selected fragrance materials.
Every ingredient has a job.
Some cleanse.
Some create lather.
Some soften.
Some help hold moisture in the skin.
Some give a balm its structure.
Some provide color or texture.
Some simply make your shower smell ridiculously good.
And we’re perfectly okay with that being their job.
Natural Doesn’t Mean Perfect
We think transparency is more meaningful than buzzwords.
An ingredient isn’t automatically safe because it’s natural, and it isn’t automatically harmful because it was made in a laboratory.
Natural ingredients still require responsible sourcing, appropriate formulation, preservation when necessary, safe usage rates, and an understanding of allergies and sensitivities.
Likewise, every ingredient has an environmental footprint. Plants require land and water. Livestock requires resources. Minerals must be extracted. Ingredients must be processed and transported.
Our goal isn’t to pretend otherwise.
Our goal is to make better, more intentional choices—using ingredients for a reason, reducing unnecessary waste, valuing traditional materials and by-products where appropriate, sourcing responsibly when possible, and creating products people will actually use down to the last bit.
What Goes On Your Body Matters
You deserve to know what’s in the products you use.
That’s why we want our ingredient lists to mean something—not hide behind vague promises about “clean” beauty.
We make and choose products with an appreciation for traditional ingredients, modern formulation knowledge, responsible sourcing, and the simple belief that body care can be both beautiful and understandable.
**Made in North Carolina