Lately I have been reading forum posts here and there, mostly by accident because I find links that sound interesting in odd places on the ‘net and click them. A lot of times I run across people asking for resources of soap that “does not have lye in it.”Well, that’s easy! No soap, properly done, has lye in it. However, lye was used to make the soap. No lye, no soap, as we soap makers like to say. No lie! 
How can a caustic and dangerous compound be used to create such a gentle and useful product? Consider this:
There exists a powdered metal that is highly explosive when exposed to water. If it mixes with water it creates a chemical that can literally dissolve human flesh. It is highly toxic by itself and when combined with many elements.
There also exists a gas that is two and a half times heavier than air. It has such a foul odor that one can feel suffocated breathing it. It is highly poisonous, and is actually used to produce mustard gas biological weapons. Not to mention that if it mixes with hydrogen it forms an acid so strong that it will eat through metal and cause severe burns to skin.
Even though these elements are highly dangerous, they exist in our homes. We consume them every day. Want me to tell you what they are so you can eliminate them from your environment?
They are: Sodium and Chlorine. Combined they are sodium chloride, NaCl. That’s table salt, people! And even if you don’t add salt to your diet, it is naturally occurring in your food. You cannot avoid it. And that’s a good thing, because if you didn’t have sodium chloride in your body your heart beat would not be regulated, your cells (particularly brain cells) could not extract excess acid, your muscles would cramp up, your blood sugar could not be balanced…Need I go on?
Okay, so that’s salt. We all know salt won’t kill us, right? Right. But sodium, not combined with other choice elements, will. Chlorine, not combined with other choice elements, will. Do you see where I’m going with this?
So, you take lye, Sodium Hydroxide, in its uncombined state. Boo bad dangerous, no doubt about it. Lye is highly reactive, though. It’s just itching to get its groove on with something, anything. Think of it as the drunken frat guy of the chemical world. If it doesn’t get to party with something, it’ll just sit there and pull water out of the air.
So, you take the drunken frat guy (lye) to a party (a big pan of melted oils and fats). It’s a party during spring break, so the pickin’s are good. At first, he doesn’t mix in (oil and water don’t like to mix), but when the scene gets stirred up a bit, the chicks come running (the chemical reaction gets going). In fact, all of the frat boys that go to the party hook up. Turns out, they’re so happy with the chicks they met, they get married, get a clue, and turn into very responsible young men who study hard, get good grades in college, and do the dishes for their wives (okay, that part is a stretch).
It’s the same with lye. All the lye molecules find mates and are no longer a menace to society. They’re benign compounds that can cleanse your skin and make you feel fabulous!
So if there’s no lye left in the soap, why is sodium hydroxide listed on ingredient labels on the soap? There are two methods to labeling, and soap makers get to pick one:
1. List ingredients that went into the pot to make the soap. In this case, you’ll see words like: sodium hydroxide, palm oil, coconut oil, olive oil, fragrance, etc.
2. List the compounds that come out of the pot. In this case, you’ll see something like this: sodium palmate, sodium cocoate, sodium oliveate, fragrance, etc.
So you see handmade soap is nothing to fear. All the lye is gone, and all that’s left is the good stuff.
