After thinking about it for over a week, maybe here is what I should have said:
Our soap is just that - soap! It is a simple process of mixing fats and lye together to form a lovely, bubbly bar that no longer contains any of the lye, but only a luxurious, fragrant, moisturizing "salt" that we call soap. What we often find in the grocery store labeled as soap is really a detergent bar made up of a list chemicals. most of which are unpronounceable and certainly unfamiliar.
Often, the people who have learned to make their own soap have done so because they or members of their family have developed skin problems. They find that the problems are soothed and usually disappear with the use of plain and simple soap.
The thing that makes our soap special is that we have been making soap for over 20 years. Over this time, we have perfected our recipe - adding a bit more this for a better textured bar, or a little of that to improve the bubbles or the soothing qualities. We make our changes slowly to be sure that they are changes for the better. If we find a new scent that we MUST add, we will try it out and test it to be sure it is as attractive to others as it is to us. We make sure it will "stick" and not just last long enough to get it on the shelves.
Our current challenge is that we are working to remove palm oil from our formula because we feel it is the proper thing to do, ecologically. We are trying various replacements for the qualities that we feel palm oil imparts and when we feel we have found the correct replacement, we will make the switch.
We are very proud of our soap. It is still, truly made in small batches. We tried making larger batches and found that the texture of the soap suffered and that is not our style. We have improved our methods so that we can make our small batches faster, but we will never become a major supplier, masquerading as a small operation, who is willing to sacrifice quality for quantity.
