Can You Call Handmade Soap Natural or Organic?

Can I call my handmade soap natural?

What if I use mica or fragrance oil? Is it still natural?

And if I buy organic oils, can I call my finished soap organic?

These questions come up all the time among soapmakers, and unfortunately, the answers aren’t quite as simple as sticking a “natural” or “organic” label on a bar because the ingredients sound wholesome.

For starters, natural and organic do not mean the same thing. In the United States, they’re also treated very differently from a regulatory standpoint.

And before we get too far into this, I want to make something very clear: this isn’t about deciding which soapmakers are making soap the “right” way.

I personally love working with botanicals and other natural ingredients. I’ve spent years experimenting with them, especially as soap colorants. But plenty of wonderful soapmakers use fragrance oils, micas, synthetic colorants, and other ingredients that don’t fit everyone’s definition of natural.

That’s okay.

The goal here isn’t to put soapmakers into natural and unnatural camps. It’s to understand what these words mean—or don’t mean—so you can make thoughtful ingredient choices and describe your soap accurately.

First, Is Your Handmade Soap Actually “Soap”?

Before we get into natural and organic, there’s one funny little regulatory wrinkle worth understanding: not everything we casually call soap is legally treated as soap.

According to the FDA’s definition of soap, a product is regulated as traditional soap when it is composed mainly of the alkali salts of fatty acids—the stuff we create when fats or oils react with an alkali such as sodium hydroxide—and those alkali salts provide the product’s cleaning action.

How you market the bar matters, too.

A traditional bar marketed simply for cleansing can fall under the regulatory definition of soap. Start making cosmetic claims or claims about treating or preventing conditions, and you can move into a very different regulatory category.

I’ve gone much deeper into this in my guide to how to label handmade soap for sale in the USA, so if you’re selling your soap, that’s a good article to read alongside this one.

For our purposes here, though, we’re talking primarily about traditional handmade soap made through saponification.

Natural and Organic Are Not the Same Thing

These two words get lumped together constantly, but they’re very different claims.

Natural generally describes where ingredients come from or how they’re produced—but there isn’t one universally regulated definition of “natural” for handmade soap.

Organic, on the other hand, refers to a specific agricultural production and certification system overseen in the United States by the USDA.

That’s an important distinction.

A soap could be made entirely from ingredients that a soapmaker considers natural without qualifying to be labeled organic. And a soapmaker can use some certified-organic ingredients without the finished soap qualifying to be called “organic soap.”

Let’s tackle natural first.

What Does “Natural Soap” Actually Mean?

Here’s where things get a little squishy.

The FDA says it has not established a regulatory definition of “natural” for cosmetic labeling. That means there isn’t an FDA checklist where you can simply tick off five boxes and officially declare your handmade soap natural. It does not, however, mean that anything goes.

The FDA still requires cosmetic labeling to be truthful and not misleading. And even when a traditional soap falls outside FDA’s definition of a cosmetic, making clear, supportable claims is simply good practice for any soap business.

So rather than asking:
“Am I allowed to call this natural?”

I think there’s a better question:
“What do I mean when I call my soap natural, and can I explain that honestly to my customer?”

That’s where things get much more useful.

You Need to Decide What “Natural” Means in Your Soapmaking

Soapmakers don’t all draw the natural line in the same place. One maker might define natural soap as soap made with plant oils, sodium hydroxide, essential oils, clays, and botanicals. Another might include mineral pigments. Someone else may be perfectly comfortable using naturally derived ingredients that have undergone significant processing. And another soapmaker might use fragrance oils and micas and simply choose not to market the finished soap as natural at all.

There isn’t necessarily a moral winner here.

What matters is understanding the ingredients you’re using and making claims that accurately represent your product.

For example, if you’re interested in coloring soap without synthetic colorants, there is an enormous range of options. Herbs, roots, spices, clays, charcoal, and other ingredients can create colors you might never expect from nature.

My Botanical Soap Color Index is a good place to start exploring individual natural colorants, and my beginner’s guide to natural soap colors explains how these ingredients behave during cold process soapmaking.

But using botanical colors is a choice, not a requirement for being a good soapmaker.

What About Micas, Fragrance Oils, and Synthetic Ingredients?

This is where conversations about “natural soap” can get unnecessarily divisive. If you make soap with micas or fragrance oils, I don’t want you reading an article about natural soap and feeling as though I’m telling you that your soap is somehow inferior.

I’m not.

Synthetic ingredients can give soapmakers access to colors, fragrances, consistency, and creative possibilities that aren’t always possible with natural ingredients.

Likewise, natural ingredients come with their own challenges. Botanical colors can morph, fade, or vary from batch to batch. Essential oils don’t always behave the way we want them to in soap. Natural materials can contain allergens and other compounds that need to be used thoughtfully. In fact, the FDA specifically cautions against assuming that ingredients are safe simply because they come from plants.

Natural does not automatically mean safer. Synthetic does not automatically mean dangerous.

They’re descriptions of ingredient origin or production—not shortcuts for determining safety or quality. That’s one reason I don’t think soapmakers need to defend whichever side of this spectrum they fall on.

If your goal is to make an entirely naturally colored soap, fantastic. That’s the rabbit hole I personally love crawling down.

If your artistic vision requires a neon pink mica that practically glows from across the room, have fun with it!

Just don’t make a claim about the finished soap that its ingredients can’t support.

Be More Specific When You Can

There’s another option I really like: instead of relying on the broad word natural, tell people what’s actually special about the soap.

For example:

• Colored with botanical ingredients
• Naturally colored with indigo
• Scented with essential oils
• Made with certified-organic olive oil
• Made without synthetic fragrance

Those statements tell your customer much more than the word “natural” by itself. They’re also easier for you to substantiate.

This is especially useful if your soap doesn’t fit neatly into your personal definition of 100% natural.

Maybe you naturally color a soap with indigo but scent it with a fragrance oil. Rather than trying to decide whether the entire bar earns the title “natural soap,” you can simply say that it’s naturally colored with indigo.

That’s accurate, useful information. And nobody has to convene the International Soapmaker Council of Naturalness to decide whether your bar qualifies.

So What About “Organic” Soap?

This is where the rules become much more specific.

The FDA does not define or regulate “organic” as a cosmetic marketing standard. Instead, organic agricultural claims in the United States fall under the USDA’s National Organic Program.

The USDA has specific requirements for products labeled “100 percent organic,” “organic,” and “made with organic”.

So unlike the fuzzy world of “natural,” organic isn’t simply a word you get to define for your own business.

100 Percent Organic

Under USDA rules, products represented as 100 percent organic must contain 100 percent certified-organic ingredients and processing aids, excluding water and salt from the organic-content calculation.

For soapmakers, this category is obviously tricky because soap requires an alkali to become soap.

Organic

A product labeled organic generally must contain at least 95% certified-organic content, excluding water and salt from the calculation.

The remaining ingredients are subject to USDA restrictions, including requirements involving the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances.

Products meeting the requirements for this category may use the USDA Organic seal when the applicable certification and labeling requirements are met.

Made With Organic…

The next category is made with organic…

These products must contain at least 70% certified-organic content, again subject to USDA rules governing the remaining ingredients.

The principal display panel may identify up to three organic ingredients or ingredient categories—for example, “made with organic olive oil”—when the product qualifies for this labeling category.

These products cannot use the USDA Organic seal.

Less Than 70% Organic Content

If a product contains less than 70% organic content, the USDA does not allow the finished product to be represented as organic on the principal display panel.

You can, however, identify individual certified-organic ingredients as organic in the ingredient statement when the USDA requirements for doing so are met.

You can read the full breakdown directly from the USDA’s organic labeling guidance here.

Using Organic Olive Oil Doesn’t Automatically Make It Organic Soap

This is probably the distinction I wish more soapmakers understood.

Let’s say you splurge on a beautiful certified-organic olive oil for your recipe.

Great!

You absolutely used an organic ingredient.

But that does not automatically mean the finished bar qualifies to be labeled “organic soap.”

The USDA categories apply to the composition and handling of the finished product, not simply to whether one or two ingredients started out certified organic. That’s why wording matters so much. There can be a very important difference between:

Organic soap and Soap made with organic olive oil

The second statement describes a specific ingredient. The first makes a claim about the finished product. Those aren’t interchangeable.

But Wait…What About the Lye?

Ah, yes.

Every soapmaker reading the organic percentages eventually gets here.

“My soap is made with sodium hydroxide. Lye isn’t organic. So how could handmade soap ever qualify as organic?”

Remember that the USDA organic rules aren’t simply a requirement that every substance in a product grew on an organic farm. The National Organic Program includes rules for non-agricultural ingredients, including both synthetic and nonsynthetic substances.

For products in the organic categories, non-agricultural ingredients must meet the applicable requirements of the USDA National Organic Program and its National List

This is where I would strongly caution against trying to determine whether your soap qualifies for an organic claim with some back-of-the-envelope soap calculator math.

If selling certified-organic soap is important to your business, work with a USDA-accredited organic certifier. They can evaluate your formula, ingredients, processing, recordkeeping, and labeling against the actual National Organic Program requirements.

Organic Doesn’t Automatically Mean Better Soap, Either

This is another distinction worth making. Organic certification tells you something meaningful about how qualifying agricultural ingredients were produced and handled. It does not automatically tell you whether a soap has better lather, feels better on the skin, lasts longer in the shower, smells better, or was formulated more skillfully. Those are different questions.

The same is true of natural soap.

• You can formulate a fantastic soap with natural ingredients.
• You can formulate a terrible soap with natural ingredients.
• You can formulate a fantastic soap using synthetic fragrance and color.

The craft is still in the formulation.

If you want to understand the nuts and bolts of what makes a recipe work, that’s where topics such as SAP values and lye calculations become much more important than the marketing words we put on the front of a label.

What Can I Say on My Handmade Soap Label?

So let’s bring all of this back to the question that probably got you here.

Can I call my handmade soap natural?

There is no FDA regulatory definition of “natural” for cosmetic labeling. If you choose to use the term, make sure you have a clear, defensible understanding of what you mean by it and that your labeling isn’t misleading.

Better yet, consider using more specific claims such as “naturally colored with botanicals” or “scented with essential oils” when those statements more accurately describe your product.

Can I call soap with mica or fragrance oil natural?

There’s no single regulatory definition that gives us a universal yes-or-no answer. This is exactly why I prefer specificity.

If you use mica and fragrance oil, you don’t need to apologize for it. But if those ingredients don’t fit the definition of “natural” you’ve established for your brand, don’t stretch the word to fit the product.

Tell customers what you actually used.

Can I say “made with organic olive oil”?

Potentially—but organic claims are regulated, so you need to make sure the ingredient and your use of the claim comply with USDA requirements.

Don’t assume that purchasing one organic ingredient automatically gives you permission to make any organic claim you like about the finished product.

Can I call my soap organic?

Only when your product and its production meet the applicable USDA National Organic Program requirements for that claim.

Using some organic ingredients is not the same thing as producing a product that qualifies to be represented as organic.

Is natural soap safer than soap made with synthetic ingredients?

Not automatically.

Ingredient safety depends on the ingredient, concentration, intended use, formulation, and other factors—not simply whether something came from a plant or was manufactured.

As the FDA explains in its soap guidance, products are subject to safety requirements regardless of whether their ingredients come from plants, animals, minerals, or synthetic sources.

My Favorite Approach: Tell People What You Actually Do

If there’s one thing I hope you take away from all of this, it’s that specificity is usually more useful than buzzwords.

“Natural” sounds nice.

But:

Naturally colored with madder root and annatto
tells me something.

Scented only with essential oils
tells me something.

Made with certified-organic olive oil
tells me something.

And if you’re a soapmaker who loves fragrance oils and micas?

Tell me that, too!

Soapmaking is an incredible combination of chemistry, craft, art, experimentation, and personal preference. We don’t all have to make the same ingredient choices to make wonderful soap.

We just need to understand the choices we’re making—and communicate them honestly.

Continue Learning with Soapy Friends

Once you start thinking about what “natural” means in your own soapmaking, you’ll probably find yourself looking at your ingredients a little differently. That’s part of the fun: understanding not only what you’re putting into your soap, but why you’re choosing it.

If you’d like to continue learning and soaping along with me, here are a few great next steps:

How to Label Soap for Sale in the USA
If you’re selling your soap, continue with the nuts and bolts of soap labeling and learn what information belongs on your label.

Botanical Soap Color Index
Explore plant-based and natural colorants you can use to create everything from subtle creams and yellows to greens, blues, purples, and blacks.

Free Soapy Friends Starter Kit
Grab my collection of free soapmaking classes, charts, labels, and tools. There’s something in there for brand-new soapmakers and experienced soapy friends alike.

The Natural Soap Color Palette – Digital Edition
If natural color is the rabbit hole you want to crawl down with me, this is my guide to experimenting with more than 22 natural soap colors, botanical infusions, and custom color blends.