What actually makes a soap vegan (and why most aren't)

'Vegan' on a soap label isn't regulated. Anyone can write it. Here's what we actually check before we put it on ours.

The usual suspects

Honey, beeswax, milk (goat, cow, donkey), tallow, and lard are the five animal ingredients you'll find most often in handcrafted soap. Honey and beeswax are great moisturizers — they're not vegan, but they're also not hidden. They'll be on the label.

The sneaky one

Stearic acid. Used as a hardener. It can come from plants (palm or coconut) or from animals (tallow). The label rarely says which. If a soapmaker can't tell you, it's almost always animal-derived.

What we do

Our vegan bars use saponified plant oils only — olive, coconut, shea, castor — plus essential oils and botanical inclusions. Our honey and oat-milk bars are *not* vegan, and we say so on the label.

If you keep a vegan kitchen, the line we'd draw is: **"if it doesn't say vegan on the bar, assume it isn't."**