Matching Pears - Pears Soap formula change
W
e are probably the only people in the world who still make factory scale Transparent Glycerine soap in a similar way to the original Pears. Ours is cast into large one tonne blocks and then cut down by hand into bars before stamping into shape. As you can imagine we have been very interested in the debate about the Pears formulation change and my own personal opinion is that the change was purely for cost saving. Raw material prices have increased dramatically over the last couple of
years and since these are global commodities (like coconut oil and
glycerine), it makes little difference if you are based in Mumbai or Manchester. Also this process is very labour intensive, which is a significant cost, no matter where your factory is based. For comparison, in the UK, Pears sells for about 60p but our equivalent is more than double that. As for the ingredients listing, one reason for the increased number of ingredients on the Pears packaging is that new EC regulations mean that some perfume components need to be listed whereas before they would be covered by ‘parfum’ or ‘perfume’.
I am trying my best to be balanced here! Manufacturing is hard enough without soap makers having a go at each other. Hope that’s a useful bit of background. The Pine Tree is there because it’s the source for Rosin. The Maple Wood is because Rosin is farmed in much the same way as Maple syrup.